Zaragoza.- “Europe has been and is synonymous with a better future for Spain and for Aragon”. This is the message that the government delegate in Aragon, Fernando Beltrán, wanted to launch on the occasion of Europe Day, which in 2025 coincides with the 75th anniversary of the Shuman Declaration, on which the foundations of the current European Union were laid. Beltrán said that “Aragón is better prepared today thanks to the 2.5 billion euros of European funds from the Spanish Government’s Recovery Plan”.
Specifically, to date, the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan has involved a total investment of 2,541 million euros for Aragon. Of these, 1,529 million euros come from calls and tenders of the General Administration of the State already resolved, while 1,012 million euros have been allocated in sectoral conferences, of which 745 million have been resolved. In total, between entities and individuals, Aragón has 41,964 beneficiaries.
These large figures are broken down into strategic sectors for Aragon that are in turn a pole of attraction for new investments. Thus, the railway totals 324 million euros for projects such as the recovery of the Zaragoza–Canfranc–Pau line or the Zaragoza–Teruel-Sagunto corridor; in reindustrialization, the PERTE VEC accumulates 325 million euros, with Stellantis as the main receiver (284 million); in energy, the PERTE ERHA totals 178 million euros, with important projects of green hydrogen (81 million euros), but also structuring actions, such as the energy communities; in agriculture, 171 million have been allocated to modernization of irrigation.
To this must be added other actions in areas with a high social impact, such as health (44 million euros), health (26 million euros in state-of-the-art equipment) or housing (41 million euros in new construction and rehabilitation).
Other aid lines managed by the Government of Spain that are allowing to carry out specific projects in municipalities of the three provinces, such as the adaptation of the Huerva riverside in Zaragoza (5 million), the works for the future Faculty of Medicine in Huesca (3 million) or the restoration of the Lonja-Casa Consistorial in Alcañiz (2.3 million), also stand out.
Institutional declaration
In his statement on the occasion of Europe Day, Beltrán states that “the European Union is the greatest peace factory in history.” The delegate recalls that “culture and exchanges have been the backbone of Europe for centuries, but we must not forget that it has also been a continent of conflicts. Just 75 years ago, with the Schuman Declaration, Europeans laid the foundations of the European Union, a project that made it possible to turn the page after the Second World War and begin a path of shared prosperity.”
For all these reasons, Beltrán regrets that, after decades of European construction, “many want to abandon that path, to return to conflict. They want less Europe, just when we need more Europe. We see it in issues like energy, defense, or trade.”
Faced with this, Beltrán argues that “being together makes us stronger”. “Without Europe you don’t understand the Spain and the Aragon of the last 40 years. Thanks to Europe we have better roads, better trains, better sanitary facilities, better industry. In short, Europe has been and is synonymous with a better future for Spain and for Aragon”, he concludes.