The Diplomat
The State Secretary for International Cooperation has called for grants, corresponding to 2022, to foundations and associations dependent on political parties to carry out activities foreseen in the framework of the Master Plan for Cooperation.
The resolution, signed on October 27 in Madrid by the State Secretary for International Cooperation, Pilar Cancela Rodríguez, and published on November 1 in the Official State Gazette (BOE), establishes that the beneficiaries of these grants will be foundations and associations dependent on political parties with parliamentary representation at the state level.
Specifically, subsidies will be granted for training activities, consolidation and dissemination of the democratic system and all its components (party system, rule of law, good governance, etc.), preferably in the countries identified in the Master Plan for Spanish Cooperation.
The appropriation for the financing of these grants amounts to 700,000 euros and the amount received by each applicant may not exceed 500,000 euros. Therefore, the same amount as in 2021 is maintained. In contrast, this amount is clearly lower than the 900,000 euros that were granted between 2012 and 2019 (except in 2016, when the then incumbent government distributed around 785,000 euros among party foundations and associations). In 2020, in the middle of the first year of the pandemic, these grants were not called.
The applications will be scored taking into account both the technical assessment of the project and the total number of seats in the Congress of Deputies and the Senate held by the political party on which the foundation depends at the time of publication of this call. The percentage value resulting from the multiplication of both factors will determine the amounts to be distributed among the beneficiary entities, which in no case will exceed 500,000 euros.
In the previous call, announced in December 2021, the Pablo Iglesias Foundation, of the PSOE, took 333,200 euros for its activity Promotion of democracy and consolidation of political party systems. In second place was the Concordia y Libertad Foundation (formerly Fundación Humanismo y Democracia, of the PP), which obtained 290,500 euros to finance its Ibero-American Regional Program for Strengthening Democracy and its Seminar and Conference Program. Apart from this, Fundación Disenso, of Vox, received 34,580 euros for its programs Electoral Observation and Report and seminars on the negative consequences of 2030 Agenda.
The two main formations of Unidas Podemos, a minority partner in the coalition government, obtained a total of 31,990 euros, although very unequally distributed. Podemos’ Fundación Instituto 25 de Mayo para la Democracia obtained 26,670 euros for its Plan of Activities 2021 and two projects on Chile and Colombia, while IU’s Fundación por la Europa de los Ciudadanos had to make do with 5,320 euros to finance the Caribbean regional meeting of the national platform of popular women, peace and territory. Finally, the Sabino Arana Fundazioa, of the PNV, received 9,730 euros for its Activities framed in the Master Plan for Spanish Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2021-2022.
