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Malaga province's economy had received 94 million euros of European Next Generation funds by the end of 2024, according to figures updated this Tuesday by AIReF, Spain's independent authority for fiscal responsibility. These are resources from the measure designed by the European Union to promote economic recovery after the Covid-19 pandemic and to boost the productive transformation of the EU towards a more sustainable and more digital model. In each country this money is distributed according to a programme drawn up by their respective national government that had to be approved by Brussels and which in Spain is called the recovery, transformation and resilience plan (PRTR).
Malaga province is thus in ninth place in Spain for the monies received from this resource. That amount is eight times less than that received by the province in first place. This is EU money that Brussels first transfers to the state in question - in Spain's case, via central government. The Spanish government then distributes the funds among the different entities, regional and local bodies as guided by each ministerial department and in which the regional ministers take part. The government of each region then holds its own calls for tenders to allocate the resources received to the projects being developed in its area.
The 94 million euros that have come to Malaga are those mobilised by the local councils in the province from the monetary injections from Brussels via central government. According to the information compiled by AIReF, some of the most important projects financed by Next Generation in the province are the underground car park and redevelopment of the area around the Iglesia del Carmen in Estepona (8.27 million euros), the Los Ruices wastewater treatment plant (7 million euros), the supply of electric buses for the EMT urban buses fleet (7 million euros), chargers for electric buses (nearly 6 million euros), biogas cogeneration facilities (5 million euros), refurbishment of the Lope de Vega Theatre in Vélez-Málaga (4.1 million euros) as well as various sustainable and social rental housing developments. By macro-areas, the three main areas receiving funding fall under sustainable mobility with 37 million euros, rehabilitation and urban regeneration with 15 million euros and industrial policy with an injection of 12 million euros.
37 million euros
for sustainable mobility: this is the area that has received the most EU Next Generation resources in Malaga province.
The Malaga figure is far behind the province that has received the most EU funds to date, which is Barcelona. The 767 million euros amount to over eight times the amount received by Malaga (94 million euros).
After Barcelona, the second province receiving most of these particular EU funds is Madrid (296 million euros). In third place is Seville, with 202 million euros, more than double the amount of European resources injected into Malaga's productive fabric. Ahead of Malaga are also Las Palmas, Guipúzcoa, Valencia and Murcia, all with a funding injection in excess of 100 million euros, as well as Zaragoza at 98 million.
Malaga is therefore the Andalusian province in second place in terms of receiving European funds, but a long way behind Seville in first place. Next is Cadiz with 67 million euros, Almeria (41 million euros), Granada and Jaen, both with 30 million euros, while the funding boost to Huelva is limited to 19 million euros and that of Cordoba to date stands at 18 millions.
However, a more rigorous analysis of the figures requires comparing the volume of European funds received with the size of each province, taking population as the criterion for measuring it. Thus, if Malaga ranks ninth in terms of resources received, it is the sixth most populated province in Spain, behind Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Alicante and Seville. So, if the economy of Barcelona has received an injection eight times that of Malaga, the population of the former, with 5.96 million inhabitants, is only 3.3 times that of Malaga (almost 1.79 million residents).
If we make the calculations in euros per capita, Guadalajara would be the most favoured province, with 227.80 euros. Meanwhile, in Barcelona the result is 128 euros per capita. The figure for Malaga is 52.54 euros, well below the 102.40 euros in Seville, but well ahead of the 9.57 euros in Castellón, the 13.17 euros in Navarra and the 23.35 euros in Cordoba.
However, these figures do not correspond to the total funds received by the Spanish provinces. It should be remembered that these are the projects tendered or subsidised by the local authorities and financed with European resources. Bear in mind that the calls for proposals made by the regions have also had an economic impact on their respective provinces. For example, the region of Andalucía has allocated more than 1.56 billion euros to projects and it is to be expected that this will contribute to the development of Malaga province, as well as the rest of the region.
Taking AIReF's observations on the PRTR published on Tuesday, AIReF reports that the pace of formalising tenders and awarding grants has slowed down with respect to 2023. That hunch is reflected in the figures. According to data compiled by the watchdog, if the sectoral calls made by central government - handled via meetings between the respective minister and the regional ministers representing that sector - have allocated a total of almost 4.17 billion euros to Andalucía as the biggest beneficiary of Next Generation funds to date, between the regional ministries and the local authorities they had tendered or subsidised projects worth over 1.66 billion euros at the end of last year. Meanwhile, of the more than 3.97 billion euros that have corresponded to Catalonia, just over 2.31 billion euros have reached the real economy. Of the nearly three billion euros that correspond to Madrid, the funds allocated and spent are equivalent to two billion euros.
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