The government delegate, Pedro Blanco, demanded that the Xunta de Galicia “stop tangling” with the figures of the Recovery Plan and give an account of how it is executing the more than 1.4 billion euros of European funds that the government transferred to it for its direct management. He also stressed that the funds managed by the Government are reaching each and every one of the Galician municipalities, which are having a much more active role than the Xunta in mobilizing investments that result in the improvement of the economy and the quality of life of the Galicians and the Galicians.
In this line, Pedro Blanco pointed out that the more than 1,600 million euros directly managed by the Government are those that are allowing a change of model in the community towards an economy based on the creation of quality employment and the sustainability and competitiveness of the Galician industrial and business fabric. “Investments that are benefiting more than 25,000 companies and self-employed people in Galicia and that also reach more than a thousand local entities and public bodies,” he said.
Thus, Pedro Blanco listed actions financed from these funds in the field of infrastructure, such as the more than 209 million euros invested by the Government in intermodal stations, the 65 for sustainable mobility in the municipalities, the more than 200 million for the railway accesses to the ports of Coruña and Ferrol and the Plisan, the 550 million for the modernization of the Ourense - Monforte - Lugo railway route; the 111 for the arrival of the AVE to Ourense; the departures for the humanizations of the main avenues of A Coruña and Ferrol and the Millesiro de La Marxo.
The delegate also highlighted the government’s effort to digitize the territory and the extension of 5G. In particular, the commitment to bring high-speed Internet to all corners of Galicia, with more than 144 million euros of investment through the UNICO Program. Not to mention the more than 85 million euros of the Digital Kit that have already reached 20,000 SMEs and self-employed members of the community or the various digital training initiatives for citizens.
In terms of industry, Pedro Blanco highlighted the transformation that Galicia will experience in the coming years thanks to the funds of the Government Recovery Plan. In this line, he listed the more than 50 million euros that Galician companies will receive for the redevelopment of wind farms and hydraulic infrastructures and the 20 million that the Government gives to Inega to experiment with offshore wind. Also the 38 million euros for the green hydrogen projects, the nearly 20 that PERTE Agro mobilizes among Galician companies or the 145 million in orders received by the shipyards of the Vigo estuary of the Civil Guard and the Spanish Institute of Oceanography and that managed to revitalize a sector that Xunta itself was leading to its disappearance.
“The government is showing that it knows how to do things well and that it can look for a different way out of the crisis, more green, digital and egalitarian,” said Blanco, who gave as an example the record investment in tourism. “A tourism that not only focuses on the Camino de Santiago, to which the Xunta seems to trust much of its policies, but mobilizes 182 million euros for sustainable tourism plans in much of the country, or 50 million euros for the rehabilitation of the rich Galician cultural heritage.”
The money of the Recovery Plan of the Government in Galicia is also allowing the construction of more than 500 social rental homes in different Galician concellos and actions for the improvement of the environment, such as the future treatment plant of Santiago or the modernization of the irrigation of the Limia.
“We are talking about investments that not only respond to the needs of the population, but also cover the lack of action of the Xunta in matters such as industry, social housing, digitalization, attention to rural or innovation that the Galicians and Galicians have suffered since the arrival of the PP to San Caetano.”
Institutional loyalty
Faced with these figures, Pedro Blanco demanded “institutional loyalty” to the leaders of the Xunta, who were invited to demonstrate the same level of transparency and who recalled the duty to indicate the existence of funds from the Recovery Plan in many of the actions carried out by the Regional Administration.