€2,000 Covid-19 payment requests for freelancers on hold until Tuesday

The Catalan government has suspended all new applications for Covid-19 financial help for self-employed people until Tuesday morning at 9am, in order to strengthen its processing systems.

The Department of Labor website struggled to cope with demand on Monday, the first day that freelancers, known as autònoms in Catalan, could apply for a one-off €2,000 payment.

A total of 3,543 requests for help were successfully processed before officials decide to temporarily shut down the system in order to make improvements, following complaints from users throughout the day.

According to the Digital Policies department, the platform has experienced "some incidents" due to high demand, slowing down the process and causing "cuts in the processing service."

The government decided to grant the payments via a non-competitive procedure – first come, first served, until the budget is exhausted. A total of €20 million has been set aside, expected to benefit around 10,000 self-employed people.