The Galician PSOE has denounced this Thursday the decision of the Xunta to “return more than 22 million euros” of European funds, from the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, with which 3,200 public early childhood education places should have been created for children and girls from 0 to 3 years old. The regional government – which continues to support a model of universal free care based on also assuming the cost of private daycare centers – remembers that three years ago it warned that these funds were “poorly designed” and that they “harmed” communities, such as Galicia. , where the schooling rate reaches 60% and therefore the need to create new places is “lower”.
The complaint comes from the general secretary of the PSdeG, José Ramón Gómez Besteiro, for whom this situation is “one more example of the PP’s inability to manage European funds and its commitment to a model that benefits private interests over the public.” . Besteiro recalled that this is “the modus operandi of Feijóo’s right, which little or nothing likes the public” and that this “they already did it in Andalusia.” Then, as he pointed out, the resources were redistributed to other autonomous communities that requested more public and free places.
The socialists remember that, in 2021, the Xunta received 34.8 million euros after committing at the Education Sector Conference to create 3,417 public places in priority areas, which included rural areas and others where there was a risk of social exclusion. Since then, however, it has only launched 205 and, although it still has a year to execute them, it has preferred to renounce the funds to maintain its system and the subsidy to privately managed centers.
In fact, according to the official data mentioned by the PSdeG, of the more than 30,000 places available in Galicia, more than a third belong to the private network (13,552), another third to the regional public network (10,142) and almost 20% to the town councils. “While the Xunta returns European funds, it commits financing of 45 million euros to make private nursery schools free of charge in 2025,” he denounces.
Besteiro has considered that “it is evident that the PP has a clear interest in favoring the concerted model, in which family income is not an access criterion, thus perpetuating inequalities.” “And while it returns the money, Rueda affects the financial suffocation of the municipalities since, according to Fegamp herself, the Xunta only pays 93 euros per month per student to the municipal nursery schools, compared to the 310 euros that private companies receive. ”. “This unequal financing,” according to Besteiro, shows “a policy that despises the public and systematically favors private interests.”
The Xunta: “Penalizes leaders”
The Xunta, for its part, recalls that already in 2021 it “publicly warned” that the funds “are poorly designed” by the Government and that they “penalized” Galicia, the “absolute leader” in schooling between zero and three years.
Even so, from the Department of Social Policy – which is the one that has the powers in this age group – they point out that “35% of the funds” of the program are being executed, a percentage that “could be much higher if the Government opened the possibility of using them not only for the creation of new places, but also for the improvement of nursery schools or the financing of free schools”, something that the Xunta has “insistently” demanded.
The latest notices, in November, through a letter to the Ministry of Education and again this Thursday at the Education Sector Conference.
Social Policy states that the child schooling rate in Galicia is “above 60% and exceeds the Spanish average by 12 points.” This, they say, shows that “the need to create new places was lower than that of other autonomous communities with a lower rate.” Despite everything, “Galicia tried to use the maximum possible amount of funds” so it issued “up to three calls” for the city councils to benefit from this aid.
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