Àrea Metropolitana de Barcelona

The socio-environmental recovery of metropolitan river spaces is one of the 4 projects chosen by the Monitoring Committee of the ERDF Operational Programme of Catalonia as a good practice.

This initiative is co-financed with ERDF funds as part of the agreement between the AMB and the Government of Catalonia to undertake actions within Axes 2, 4 and 6 of the Operational Programme for Investment in Growth and Employment ERDF Catalonia 2014-2020.

The total cost of the project is 16.8 million euros, with ERDF co-financing of 6.9 million euros. The main objective is to recover and improve the metropolitan green infrastructure in the broadest sense. The aim is to organise the metropolitan territory by consolidating the green spaces in the river basins, taking into account the balance between socioeconomic development and preservation of the environment and its biodiversity.

The projects chosen as good practices meet the following criteria:

1. High dissemination among beneficiaries, potential beneficiaries and the general public.
2. Incorporation of innovative elements.
3. Match between the results of the operation and the objectives.
4. Contribution to solving a regional problem or weakness.
5. Degree of coverage of the target population.
6. Compliance with the horizontal principles (sustainable development, equality between men and women and the principle of non-discrimination) and environmental regulations.
7. Synergies with other policies or public intervention instruments.

The Ministry of Finance, the authority that manages the ERDF programme, is responsible for confirming that all the projects presented meet the required criteria. They will all be included in the annual report on the programme approved by the European Commission. This document contains a summarised version aimed at the public that only includes one of the best practices chosen, and this year it was this AMB project.

The four 2020 best practices of the Catalan ERDF Operational Programme 2014-2020, as well as the other Spanish operational programmes, can be seen at the website of the Ministry of Finance.