Vice President of Innovation and Digital Agenda, Juan de Dios Navarrodenounced a new “boycott” of the Generalitat Valenciana against the province of Alicante in the distribution of subsidies provided by the Valencia Innovation Agency (AVI). “Ximo Puig is once again underestimating the province to the detriment of Alicante and Castellón, by maintaining a sectarian policy of centralizing direct aid in Valencia,” Navarro said. “The old and rotten centralism of Puig and his nationalist associates in Consell must end. The Valencian Community is made up of all of us and is being built from north to south and south to north. “You can’t isolate a region,” MP said.
The proposal for the Strategic Subsidy Plan 2023-2025 was published in DOGV this week, and “Following the same discriminatory model that started with the three-year program in 2021, no organization in the province of Alicante has its own game,” noted Navarro. The budget of this latest program is €197m. but with the exception of two new clauses focusing on Valencia, the subsidies remain in line with the previous year, meaning that “unfortunately ignoring and discriminating against the province is usual in the Generalitat’s tripartite government”.
The innovation MP said, “While all this is happening, the main preoccupation of the Generalitat Presidency is its relocation to the magnificent building it bought from the Post Office in the center of Alicante. So, while Consell moves their offices and belongings to the building in Plaza de Gabriel Miró, the Alicante researchers stay here. without AVI grants and they are deprived of the economic means to compete”.
“The direct assignment of concessions to the same beneficiaries as in the previous edition is surprising and we demand a public, open and transparent statement from the Alicante Provincial Assembly,” said the provincial director. As Navarro points out, while the absence of aid in Alicante is conspicuous, “various direct allotments to Alicante” University of Valenciastudents are also supported in applications on this campus and a direct injection is given to the Technological Institutes Network, which is already receiving a lot of help to reconcile projects, or another organization also located in Valencia”.
Navarro reminded that out of the 52.3 million euro subsidy AVI gave to universities and companies in the Community in 2021, the province of Alicante received only 8.8 million euros. “While 16.8% of the total resources were allocated to projects developed in our region, 83.2% was monopolized by the rest of the Community and amounted to more than 43 million Euros.”
“Both central government and Consell are cornering and seriously damaging our region in developing and saving key sectors for the advancement of our economy. It is formed by water Tagus-Segura transferwith investments in public works and aid for innovation”, the MP points out.