Madrid, April 18, 2024. The Government of Spain has launched the new system with which the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) will be applied to combat material deprivation through the “Basic” Program. It is a model that works with cash cards and that is destined to families in extreme conditions of vulnerability with girls, boys or adolescents under their care, thus meeting the objective of reducing child poverty that the European Commission established as a priority when approving this program. Under this criterion, it is estimated that some 70,000 families will receive these cards with which they can make monthly purchases of food and basic necessities.
With this objective, and once the Government of Spain has already enabled the wallet cards, it is now the regional governments that, within the scope of their competences, have the responsibility of identifying, valuing and referring the potential beneficiaries of this system, in order to be able to send them the cards. This is established by the mandate that the Autonomous Communities received in 2022, when the European Commission approved this program.
In this way, the Government of Spain points out, the beneficiaries will have direct access to fresh food and children’s food, as well as basic hygiene products (including those of feminine hygiene), which is a notable improvement over the type of products they choose through the traditional distribution of food. On this point, the Government of Spain also points out that the wallet card system will complement and reinforce the resources that already exist, such as those offered by the Social Services of the Autonomous Communities or the Food Banks, which will continue to receive the rest of public funds destined for these objectives.
This change of model for the application of the ESF+ was unanimously approved by all the Autonomous Communities in a Territorial Council of Social Services that was held more than two years ago, on December 15, 2021. That Council established that the wallet card system should begin in 2024, the year in which the old FEAD Program ended. For that reason, on January 23, the Council of Ministers approved a Royal Decree for this model to start this year. It was set as the starting date this April, when the last ESF+ game allocated to traditional food distribution ends. And it is now, in April, that the Government of Spain fulfills its commitment to implement this system. It does so on a transitional basis until December 31. From January 1, 2025, it will be the Autonomous Communities that will manage the new model alone.
In this way, the General Administration of the State gives more time to the autonomous governments to implement this operation, since the management of social services is an exclusive competence of the Autonomous Communities. Meanwhile, the Government of Spain has made it possible for the wallet cards to be available to the regional governments. This implementation has been carried out through the Spanish Red Cross, an entity with which we collaborate, according to the Royal Decree, for having previous experience in similar initiatives, implementation throughout the national territory and broad trajectory in the work with social services and vulnerable families.
Under this premise, and to manage the wallet cards, the Spanish Red Cross has made a public tender to which seven supermarket chains have acceded: Carrefour, Alcampo, Eroski-Caprabo, Spar Gran Canaria, Más y Más, Alimerka and Dinosol. The purse cards, therefore, can be used in these supermarkets since all of them meet the requirements set by the Royal Decree and by the Basic Program. One of these requirements is that these establishments have a system that allows them to provide cards and exclude non-eligible products in cash, since the type of products that can be accessed includes only those considered to be of first necessity, as indicated by the European program. For example, with these cards you will not be able to buy ultra-processed foods or alcoholic beverages.
On the other hand, the wallet cards also serve the purpose of offering a higher economic amount to the beneficiary families compared to the previous model. In this way, and based on the number of members that make up the family unit, the wallet cards will have a financial allocation of between 130 and 220 euros per month. In addition, this new system fulfils another important objective: to avoid the social stigmatization often suffered by the most vulnerable families, applying a mechanism that already works successfully in other European countries, according to executive sources.