A total of 123 Spanish cities receive funding to develop Integrated Sustainable Urban Development Strategies

The first round of funding showed that the development of integrated sustainable urban development strategies has been an unprecedented success for local authorities in Spain, not only due to the amount of resources allocated but also due to the value brought by the selected Integrated Sustainable Urban Development Strategies to their municipalities.

Practically all municipalities of over 50,000 inhabitants and 44% of those with between 20,000 and 50,000 inhabitants presented strategies in the first round of funding, resulting in almost 70% of municipalities with over 20,000 inhabitants being able to propose and implement integrated sustainable urban development strategies. From this second round of funding, it should be noted that practically all municipalities with over 20,000 inhabitants that could request this funding have presented strategies.

As was the case in the first round of funding, all strategies were assessed independently by the State Secretary's Office for Budgets and Expenditure, the State Secretary's Office for Regional Authorities and the Ministry of Public Works. They were also examined by three sectoral departments with expertise on the issues of Information and Communication Technologies (Red.es), Transition towards a Low-Carbon Economy (Energy Diversification and Saving Institute [Spanish acronym: IDAE]) and Social Inclusion and the Fight against Poverty (European Social Fund), as well as by the specific networks responsible for Environment Affairs and Equal Opportunities. The meetings held by the Assessment Committee were also attended by over 30 specialists, as well as representatives from the European Commission.

The current round of funding includes financial support for 30% of the total provision scheduled in the ERDF Operational Programme on Sustainable Growth, which amounts to 297.5 million euros. When combined with the first round of funding, this totals practically all of the 1.01 billion euros of ERDF funding included under the Urban Axis for this programming period.

This second round of funding maintained the three funding categories of the first round of funding:

• For cities or functional areas with over 100,000 inhabitants, the co-financed funding limit was 15 million euros
• For cities or functional areas with over 50,000 inhabitants and less than 100,000 inhabitants, the co-financed funding limit was 10 million euros
• For cities or functional areas with over 20,000 inhabitants and less than 50,000 inhabitants, the co-financed funding limit was 5 million euros

Of the 40 strategies selected, 13 are from local authorities with over 100,000 inhabitants, provincial capitals or regional capitals to be managed by the Subdirectorate-General for European Regional Cooperation and Urban Development, while the other 27 strategies will be managed by the Directorate-General for Coordination of Powers with Regional Governments and Local Authorities.

New round of funding for DUSI Strategies

With the first and second rounds of funding under the ERDF resources initially scheduled for this Urban Axis now complete, the Ministry of the Treasury and Public Function has decided to announce a third round of funding for a further 344 million euros to be drawn from the technical review of the Multiannual Financial Framework.