Balearics to lose half of its EU funding

THE Balearic Minister for Economy and Tax, Lluis Ramis de Ayreflor, said yesterday that he calculates that the Balearics will lose some 55 percent of the funds it receives from the European Union in the 2007-2013 period, due to the distribution made by the national Government. He claimed that Madrid are not taking into account the huge transport bill faced by the islands.
The recognition of this problem and that some of the funds, such as those for technology, should be given to autonomous regions which are “least developed” will be the centre of negotiations between the Balearic Government and the central Government for a share in these European funds, according to Ramis de Ayreflor. The Minister said that it was regrettable that the national Minister for the Economy will not say how much each region will receive from the EU for the period 2007-2013, which will make budgeting difficult. He also said he was concerned about the allocation of the money from the technology fund. Ramis de Ayreflor said that the Balearics are “behind” the rest of the nation in investigation and development and it was his opinion that these funds should be allocated, not according to the criteria of income per head but according to a region's need in this matter. He repeated his discomfort with the fact that Pedro Solbes, National Minister for Economy, had asked about the income per head in the Balearics, which is above the national average, in order to detract from the disadvantages of being an island, a question which he was “totally against”. Central government is also ignoring the high cost of living in the Balearics and the high rate of regional inflation.
The Balearic Minister of the Economy also said it was a shame that the national Government had kept one of the criteria applied in the last period (2000-2007), which allowed them to keep 63 percent of the European funds instead of sharing them between the regions. Ramis de Ayreflor said that there is a much higher level of decentralisation now than in the last negotiation and added that, in his opinion, the national Government should allocate “a bigger part” of the European funds to the autonomous Governments. However, European enlargement has meant that Spain's overall slice of the EU handouts has shrunk and that there is going to be less and less money to go round as the bulk of cash goes East to help the new member states which are poorer than Spain and certainly poorer than the Balearics.