· JU TE NE DA 2 P 0 U 2 1 1 2 U 0 P 2 D A E T N E U · J J · U E N T E A 2 D 0 P 2 U 1 EUSKADI NEXT Basque Recovery and Resilience Programme 2021 > 2026 Basque Government Department of Economy and Treasury June 2021 2 Basque Recovery and Resilience Programme 2021 > 2026 A local response to a global challenge June 2021 update 3 Introduction 07 1 Why an update of Euskadi Next? 13 1.1. RRF Regulation 14 1.2. Decree 36/2020 16 1.3. Sectoral conferences 17 1.4. EoI submission 18 1.5. Law 1/2021 of 11th February 29 2 Suggestions for Improvement of RRF Management and Governance 31 2.1. A strategic focus: from Transformation and Resilience to Recovery 32 2.2. A distribution of resources in keeping with the transformative nature of the funds 33 2.3. A distribution of resources which considers own strengths as the levers of transformation 35 2.4. Mission-oriented focus against fragmentation 37 2.5. An operational approach which assumes the complexity of the transformative projects and their multiannual nature 38 2.6. The convergence of resources and their alignment in order to concentrate resources for transformation 39 2.7. State and regional PERTEs as a response to the transformation challenge38 40 4 3 Euskadi Next: a smart specialisation strategy at the service of recovery, transformation and resilience 43 3.1. General approach 44 3.2. Tractor projects contributing to the State PERTEs 46 STATE PERTE 1: The green and connected automotive industry 48 STATE PERTE 2: Green hydrogen energy generation 52 STATE PERTE 3: The aerospace industry 53 STATE PERTE 4: Sustainable and eff icient agriculture 54 STATE PERTE 6: Development of a national state-of-the-art healthcare system 55 3.3. Tractor projects making up the regional PERTEs 56 REGIONAL PERTE 1: Longevity, well-being and resilience 61 REGIONAL PERTE 2: Smart distribution networks (water, gas and electricity) 65 REGIONAL PERTE 3: Marine renewable energies 66 REGIONAL PERTE 4: Science and technology skills 67 REGIONAL PERTE 5: Big data – Cloud – AI - Cyber Security 68 REGIONAL PERTE 6: Creative Euskadi 70 REGIONAL PERTE 7: Sustainable cities 71 REGIONAL PERTE 8: Resilience to climate change, ecosystems and biodiversity 71 REGIONAL PERTE 9: Eco-innovation and circular economy 72 3.4. Remaining initiatives making up the Euskadi Next Programme 74 COMPONENT 1: Health and caring for people 76 COMPONENT 2: Lifelong learning 80 COMPONENT 3: Renewable energy generation 82 COMPONENT 4: Sustainable mobility 85 COMPONENT 5: Digitalisation and innovation 88 COMPONENT 6: Urban habitat 98 COMPONENT 7: Natural habitat and prevention of natural disasters 102 COMPONENT 8: Circular economy 104 4 Economic Assessment and Territorial Balance 107 Appendix 1 : Euskadi Next / PRTR Status 110 Appendix 2 : Identified private initiatives 126 5 6 Introduction EUSKADI NEXT The presentation in December 2020 of the Euskadi Next Pro- gramme 2021-2026 represented a landmark in the design of a collective response to the challenge of tackling the post-COVID era based on the certainty that a return to the previously existing “normality” is neither desirable, viable nor feasible. While it is true that the challenges we face in the future already existed before the pandemic, it is no less true that the individual and collective catharsis it has driven us into must prompt us to assume the need to function from a level of conscience different to the one that has brought us this far. 7 As early as 1992, Donella and Dennis Meadows warned that a choice had to be made between a sustainable future or the global collapse. Today, the French sociologist Edgar Morin urges us to reflect on our lives, on our relationship with the world and on the world itself. Indeed, if the 2008 crisis showed us all that hundred years”. Twenty years later, in 1992, the Fukuyama’s theory on the end of history, with the same authors confirmed their conclusions and arrival and consolidation of the liberal democra- warned that the choice had to be made between cies and market economies, underestimated the a sustainable future or global collapse. As the fragility of the institutional and natural ecosys- French sociologist Edgar Morin noted at the age tem on which the aforementioned are based, the of 991 , “we are doomed to reflect on our lives, on Covid-19 pandemic reminds us of our vulnerabi- our relationship with the world and on the world lity, both individual and collective. itself”. We cannot control nature, or avoid eco- nomic crises, or end the great epidemics, increa- Realising the fragility of our system and of our singly more rapidly transformed into pandemics. own vulnerability, must allow us to humbly assu- me our limits and our mistakes. For some time This speed of propagation is interwoven with the now we have been confusing concepts which speed at which globalisation has advanced, de- enable us to achieve collective results that we mocratising growth in areas of the planet which don’t want as individuals. Growing inequalities, lived until only a short time ago in a pre-industrial which intensify with every crisis, climate change, state and which today represent the factories whose effects are becoming obvious in increasin- of the world. A speed which has also prompted gly more diverse and frequent manners, confirm the confusion of concepts. And indeed the con- the warnings of Donella and Dennis Meadows fusions accumulate and overlap. Confusion be- in their 1972 report “The Limits to Growth”. That tween growth and prosperity, between strategy report concluded that if “the present growth and management, between ends and means, trends in world population, industrialisation, po- etc., are degrading our system of liberal demo- llution, food production, and resource depletion cracies and favouring the proliferation of popu- continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this list movements capable of plunging us back into planet will be reached sometime within the next the dark ages of the 20th century. 8 Aiming to escape from this return to the past, In 2019, the Basque Country was consuming the economist Kate Raworth proposes a look 4.32 hectares/per capita (hag/cap) of biologica- towards the future in “Doughnut Economics”2. lly productive land to satisfy their consumption With her picture of a doughnut, an image which needs. This what we could call our ecological foot- in fact inspired the logo of the United Nations print. However, each of the planet’s inhabitants 2030 Agenda with its 17 Sustainable Develop- has 1.63 global hectares (hag/cap), meaning ment Goals (SDG), this English economist, who that, if all of the planet’s inhabitants followed the works for the University of Oxford and the Uni- same consumer model as the Basque Country, versity of Cambridge, points out seven ways to the planet’s biologically productive land would think like a 21st-century economist. Outstanding have to be 2.6 times greater than it is. It comes among them are the need to move away from as no consolation that these Basque figures are the fixation on GDP, the main culprit behind the lower than the European average and than tho- confusion between growth and progress, and se of member states such as Germany, Sweden, work towards a more ambitious objective repre- Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria. sented in her famous doughnut and which can be summarised in “the social foundation and This is the pre-pandemic reality and it is up to us the ecological ceiling, limits that must not be ex- to turn this unprecedented crisis in times of pea- ceeded and which represent the life’s essentials ce into an opportunity for transformation. An contributing to the fulfilment of each person and opportunity to transform our “consumer society” the planet boundaries”. Progress therefore has into an “investment society” in order to tackle the its space somewhere between these two limits. challenges of sustainable human development, 1 Morin, E., (), Changeons de voie : les leçons du coronavirus, Denoël. 2 Raworth K., (1), Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 1st-Century Economist, Random House. 9 “The crisis has created a huge opportunity to develop economic policies which extend beyond the traditional segmenting of sectoral and technological silos, restoring governance models focused on actions of public interest” Mariana Mazzucato, Economist. from the perspective of recovery, transforma- The Next Generation EU initiative is an opportu- tion and resilience and thus to reverse the fall in nity to access this commitment to public invest- investments as a result of the fiscal consolidation ment as a motor of development, of leverage, following the Great Recession with drops of 40% to stop procrastinating in the fight against glo- between 2009 and 2019, stabilising at 1.1% of bal warming. A commitment which must not be the GDP, thereby standing at a historical low. Un- exclusively translated into terms of investment like that time, investment must act as a motor of volume, but which must also entail new forms of recovery, of transformation and resilience, given organisation from which to address the comple- its multiplying effects, its effect on productivity xity of the missions underlying the energy, green and on the level of public services. and digital transformations that the EU aims to tackle by means of Next Generation EU. As Mariana Mazzucato says, the crisis has crea- ted a huge opportunity to develop economic poli- This challenge becomes even more important if cies which extend beyond the traditional segmen- we consider the Recovery and Resilience Facility ting of sectoral and technological silos, restoring (RRF) as a lever for transformation, which we be- governance models focused on actions of public lieve it must be.