SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, June 29. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce of the Government of the Canary Islands has already begun the procedures through its recently constituted Provisional Administrative Unit (UAP) for the management and control of European funds for the development of a total of ten action programs charged to the ‘Next Generation EU’ initiative and on what there is a budget injection forecast for this department of more than 332,836,000 euros for the period 2021-2026.
This Ministry has established, charged to these funds, a strategy for reforming the Canarian economic model around the three sectors of its competence, which generally revolves around five major priorities: the development of a sustainable and resilient tourism model; the digital transformation of tourist destinations and companies; the promotion of competitiveness through the development of the tourist product; the promotion of the Canarian industry and the strengthening of the commercial and tourist sector of the Canary Islands. The projects financed with extraordinary European funds are oriented towards these five strategic objectives.
Specifically, the Ministry manages six plans under the React-EU program, with a budget forecast for the 2021-2023 period of 75 million euros and four plans from the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism (MRR) Funds, with an estimate of 257.8 million euros for its management until 2026.
Castilla visited this Wednesday the facilities that house the UAP staff structure, created to streamline and effectively and efficiently manage the extraordinary funds of the Next Generation EU programme.
The head of Tourism, Industry and Commerce explained in a note that the work of this UAP will not be limited to being “a mere vehicle for transmitting money from these funds to the final beneficiaries of the islands” –councils, town halls and private initiative– in accordance with the objectives set by Brussels and the lines already drawn in the ‘Spain Can Plan’ of the central government.
“What we are going to do is take joint responsibility with the final beneficiaries, helping and accompanying them to achieve the recovery and resilience objectives for which these funds are intended,” Castilla clarified.
In this sense, the counselor explained that through this unit “value will be created in the work of intermediaries between the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, which transfers money from Europe, and the final beneficiaries of those funds”, in the sense that there is co-responsibility in management to guarantee effective spending on the planned objectives, taking into account the short term for its application (some until the end of 2023 and others until 2026) and the demanding technical conditions that it entails.
“We are going to adapt to the reality of each local corporation or private entity, many of which do not have sufficient structure to manage these funds, and for what they are preparing, from training actions to translation into a simpler language. of all the European regulations that apply to these funds, or the accompaniment in the process of executing the projects”, announced Castilla.
For the projects charged to the two Next Generation EU programs, calls for grants, contracting through the entities dependent on the Ministry, such as Promotur and Hecansa, and public-private collaborations are contemplated.
Most of them are limited to the area of Tourism, although they are also transversal to other sectors.
TOURIST PROMOTION
In this sense, charged to the React-UE is the line of tourism promotion, already in execution by Promotur, with an amount of 39.9 million euros, as well as the programs, still pending development, of infrastructures tourist; grants to sustainability, competitiveness and safe destination projects; and transformation, resilience and sustainable growth projects for the tourism sector in the Canary Islands.
The tourism training project, with one million euros managed through Hecansa, and another equal amount for the Laboratory of Tourism Protocols (Canarias Fortaleza), assigned to Promotur and through which initiatives such as travel assistance insurance for tourists in the Canary Islands due to Covid were carried out.
As for the projects attached to the MMR, there are the Extraordinary Sustainability Plans (the 2021 call for an amount of 49.5 million euros is being executed and the 2022 call is in the preliminary evaluation phase with a planned allocation of 53.5 million euros). of euros).
Also, charged to this program is the ‘Canary Islands Tourism Resilience Plan’, pending the signing of the annual agreements with the Ministry and for which a total of 100 million euros is foreseen for the years 2021, 2022 and 2023.
FIVE AXES
For this plan, the Ministry has already sent to Madrid the projects for the five axes on which it is articulated, such as tourism and hospitality training; infrastructures, with actions both with local entities and with the private sector; diversification and innovation, with initiatives such as the smart tourist destination platform; connectivity; and promotion, with actions for long-stay tourism, the development of the Digital Twin of the Destination or the sponsorship of events of tourist interest, among others.
Also within the MMR Funds, the Provisional Administrative Unit of the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce will manage the energy efficiency program aimed at accommodation establishments, which includes a call for aid amounting to 16.5 million for this year and on whose bases work is already under way, as well as a call for technological modernization grants for trade, also for this year, with an allocation of 2.6 million euros.
In accordance with the personnel structure foreseen for the UAP of the Ministry, the positions of director of technical assistance, management and control of funds and the four sub-directorates (management and control of European funds; centralized contracting; sustainability and infrastructures, and industry and SMEs), being in the process of completing the provisional administrative unit that will support the management of the allocated European funds.
Castilla has also highlighted that his department subscribes to the Institutional Declaration against Fraud, whose measures have been prepared by the Government of the Canary Islands, in accordance with the requirements of the European Union.
The objective is to promote a culture that discourages all fraudulent activity and that facilitates its prevention and detection and collaborate with internal and external control systems to prevent and detect acts of fraud and correct its impact, if it occurs.
