The Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (Mitma) has taken the final step to grant 1,000 million euros of European recovery funds to 171 municipalities and two supra-municipal entities to decarbonise and digitize urban mobility. Castilla-La Mancha will receive 14,400,735.77 euros. Specifically, Albacete, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Valdepeñas, Alcázar de San Juan and Talavera de la Reina will receive subsidies to carry out their projects.
Thus, this Monday the final resolution of the first competitive call for grants to town councils for the implementation of low emission zones and sustainable transformation of public transport, included in Component 1 of the Plan, has been published on Mitma’s e-headquarters of Recovery, Transformation and Resilience, Crash plan for sustainable, safe and connected mobility in urban and metropolitan settings.
In total, 193 municipalities submitted 262 applications worth 1,497 million euros, almost 50% more than budgeted. 88.6% of applicants have obtained financing. All the proposals received have been assessed based on the criteria of maturity, impact, quality and relevance. Each application was made up of several actions, so 656 actions of the 1,154 that were submitted will be financed from the NextGenerationEU funds.
The program is aimed at municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants, provincial capitals and municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants that meet a series of requirements, such as having an urban public transport system.
Mitma will accompany the beneficiary consistories in the process of accelerating the integration of public transport with active mobility systems and will carry out close monitoring to ensure that the milestones and objectives agreed with the European Commission are met.
Thus, the municipalities must justify to the ministry the fulfillment of the purpose for which the subsidy was granted by submitting semi-annual reports on the status of the projects. The report corresponding to the first semester must be presented in the month of June of each year, while the report corresponding to the second semester will be presented in the month of December.
As stated in the final resolution, the actions must be executed and launched in December 2024, for which the Ministry has decided to deliver the aid in the form of advance payments.
To receive the first income, the municipalities must justify that the subsidized actions have begun before June 15.
The spirit of the PRTR program is to promote mobility that respects the environment and health in the cities that concentrate the most air quality problems and that have an urban transport service. The Climate Change Law requires municipalities with 50,000 or more inhabitants and provincial capitals to implement low-emission zones before 2023, while the Clean Vehicles Directive provides for the need to renew public transport fleets with low-emission vehicles. or zero emissions in the coming years, both objectives that they want to help achieve with these funds.
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