The Catalan government launches a website to promote the European funding

Barcelona (CNA).- European funds are “opportunities for skills and growth” for companies, entities and citizens. To promote these EU resources and facilitate access to them, the Catalan government has launched a website which includes the available European funding opportunities and the calls for entry in progress. “We must break the myth of a lack of access” to the EU institutions, stated the Catalan Permanent Representative to the EU, Amadeu Altafaj, and added that “they are more open and more accessible than what people may think”. The Catalan Foreign Affairs Secretary, Roger Albinyana, encouraged everybody to “make the most of the European funding opportunities” and noted that Catalonia’s participation in European projects is “comparable to that of Austria, Denmark and Finland”. Between 2007 and 2014, more than 4,000 projects in Catalonia were supported through European programmes.

Catalonia “knows well how to make the most of the funding available”, stated Albinyana during the presentation of the website in Barcelona. “Catalans have a good reputation: we are creative and innovative” he continued and called for the level of “ambition” to be “even more”. The website aims to gather together all the funding opportunities available to make access easier for “citizens and companies, especially SMEs” and “direct users to those funds which fit to their activities the most” stated Altafaj.

More than 4,000 projects supported through European funds

At the conference “European funding in Catalonia: opportunities and skills for growth”, Altafaj emphasised that in the 2007-2014 period, 4,113 projects in Catalonia were financed with European funds. Catalonia got 23% of the competitive funds of the Spanish state while its population represents only 16%. This translates into second position in the country, behind only Madrid.

The programme in which Catalonia participates the most is Research and Innovation, through the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) and Horizon 2020.Catalonia received 992.4 million euros through the FP7 (2007-2013), 3.5 times more than in the previous Framework Programme (FP6). This figure represents 2.2% of the EU total and 29.9% of the total for the Spanish state. In the last year and a half, Catalonia has received more than 190 million euros from the Horizon 2020 programme.

“We must break the myth of a lack of access” to the EU institutions, stated Altafaj, which is present in Spain and the South of Europe. “They are more open and more accessible than what people may think”, he added.

Catalonia’s pro-Europeanism in an ‘annus horribilis’ for the EU

Abinyana and Altafaj both emphasised Catalonia’s activity in Brussels and its pro-Europeanism in comparison to the growing Euro-scepticism in some Member States.  “The European funds’ website helps us to make more of Europe in a moment of growing Euro-scepticism and populist positions which aim to disintegrate the European project” assured Albinyana. He emphasised the need to defend the EU, especially after it “has closed an ‘annus horribilis’” facing the refugees crisis, trying to fight the jihadist threat and failing to deal with Greece’s economic crisis.