The mayor of Valencia, María José Catalá, called on the Spanish government this Saturday to expand the declaration of affected area seriously due to a civil protection emergency on the entire municipality, taking into account the “impact” that it has on the entire city, in a wide variety of areas, such as commerce, employment, mobility, hospitality, due to the “interaction” of the city with its entire metropolitan environment.
This was conveyed during a telematic meeting convened by the Secretary of State for Public Administrations to address aid to municipalities affected by the DANAas the council reports in a press release. Catalá explained the impact this has had on the whole city “since Valencia is experiencing an 80 percent drop in the number of small businesses and traditional businesses and we have a lot of impact on mobility because we find ourselves without a network of metro”.
In this sense, he explained that they must “fight in this next campaign so that Valencia does not enter into a difficult situation since it is the capital and the well-being of the entire province depends on it.” “This is necessary so that Valencia can re-emerge and lead the entire metropolitan area.”
Catalá indicated that they “will always participate in these meetings to be able to resolve doubts about the aid because it is important that the administrations agree to help with the process as quickly as possible“. At the same time, he regretted that the central government had not convened either the Generalitat Valenciana or the Provincial Deputation of Valencia, “at a time when the town halls concerned are processing aid from both the Generalitat and the State”. This request was processed by the Secretary of State and they will be called to the mayor’s next meetings, according to the council.
“Bad start”
“For this reason it would have been very interesting to coordinate the Spanish government with the Generalitat to be able to dispel doubts. This is a bad start, because those affected who go to the care offices because they have lost everything and know that there is help from the Generalitat and the Spanish Government, which requires that the administrations coordinate and that we all participate in these meetings to work together,” he defended.
In this sense, he insisted that “it is not a good starting point for the Government to organize its meeting with the mayors to talk about their aid and does not even include the Generalitat and the Provincial Council” .
At the same time, the mayor took stock of the aid from the Generalitat Valenciana already processed by the offices for the care of people affected in the three districts of Valencia created on November 4.
“We were able to process those of the Generalitat because there is a form,” he said, criticizing that “to date it has not yet created its own form to process state aid , which appears to be available Monday, although arrives late“.
The mayor asked the Spanish Government that in the reconstruction actions, the project and the works can be combined in a single tender, since the Contract Law provides that they must be carried out in two tenders, which lengthens the deadlines. This proposal was “welcomed” by the Secretary of State to “study it and be able to apply it”.
Among the measures requested from the Spanish Government for the affected areas are the exemption from the property tax (IBI) and the reduction of the tax on economic activities (IAE) indicated in the agreement of the Local Government Council of November 4, 2024. and included in Royal Decree-Law 6/2024, of November 5, also for the year 2025, “compensating the City Council for the decrease that occurs in local revenues through the general budgets of state or state-approved regulations.
Likewise, it is requested to relax the conditions for benefiting from the IBI exemption provided for in Royal Decree-Law 6/2024 of November 5, among which not conditioning the exemption on the total or partial relocation of people in a different house, as there are frequent houses of two or more stories in which the ground floor has been flooded and damaged while the affected families remain on the upper floor.
Extend the agreed exemption/reduction to IBI and IAE in Royal Decree-Law 6/2024, of November 5, relating to the tax on mechanical traction vehicles, for the years 2024 and 2025; that the City Council be compensated for the loss of income resulting from the measures adopted in terms of fees for the occupation of public property and for the provision of services and we urge the Spanish government to ask the EU for the possibility of granting European allocations uncommitted funds “redirecting them towards actions to meet the needs that emerged following the disaster”.
