The State Secretary for the European Union, Juan González-Barba, has made a working trip today to Zaragoza to address with the institutions in Aragon questions of European affairs with an impact on the region. In this regard, he claimed that one of the priorities of the Government of Spain is the demographic challenge, a question that should have more weight in EU policies to try to foster cohesion in the most sparsely populated areas of the EU.

The State secretary met with the President of the Regional Government of Aragon, Javier Lambán. At the meeting, they addressed issues related to the European Union of importance for Aragon, particularly in the context of the pandemic, including the Recovery Plan, the European health response to the pandemic, incentives for sparsely populated areas and European secondary education content.

Juan González-Barba conveyed to Regional President Lambán that “in a decentralised State such as ours, participation in the different lines of action of Spain before the European institutions of the regional authorities and of their regional parliaments is essential”. He also claimed that one of the priorities of the Government of Spain is the demographic challenge, and it is working to tackle this problem at an EU level, to incentivise investment, settle the population and foster cohesion in the least populated areas of the EU, which includes part of the territory of Aragon.

Aragon is an autonomous region very closely tied to the EU at different levels. It takes part in several regional cooperation projects, heads up pioneering European projects on data in the field of health, such as TEHDAS and HealthyCloud and shows a very positive capacity for absorption of European funds.

Previously, Juan González-Barba had visited the Regional Parliament of Aragon within the framework of the Conference on European Affairs, where he debated this matter with the spokespersons of the different parliamentary groups. The state secretary also held a meeting with the Mayor of Zaragoza, Jorge Azcón, who enquired after the rollout of the funds deriving from the Next Generation EU programme and conveyed his experience at the Committee of the Regions.

To end, Juan González-Barba held an event at the auditorium of Zaragoza University, involving the presence of the rector, José Antonio Mayoral.