The bureaucratic complexity has forced the Ministry of Economic Affairs to extend the term for the resolution of three calls for aid with European funds related to 5G, up to three more months, totaling a joint endowment of 626 million euros.
The aid in question is part of the Único Backhaul, which will finance the connection of telecommunications towers with fiber optics and to which more than 250 proposals have been submitted, Único Sectorial, aimed at promoting 5G industrial projects, and Único I+D, dedicated to research into advanced 5G and 6G.
“Once all the personal and material means available for the dispatch of the files have been exhausted, the exceptionality derived from the objective complexity of the processing, both due to the high number of applications received and due to the technical complexity of the R+ projects object of the same, makes it impossible to comply with the term”, the resolutions indicate in reference to the six months for the resolution that it had.
Call resolutions
Executive sources, however, will maintain that the resolution of the calls will be executed in the schedule established by the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The new deadlines would expire in April for Único Sectorial and in May for the R&D call, while Único Backhaul could be delayed until August, although they are all expected to be resolved before the summer.
In the case of Único Sectorial 2022, the Government has already published the provisional resolution, in which it awards 20 of the 60 million euros that the call contemplated to the ten projects that had been presented. Likewise, next week the term for the call for the Single Sectorial 2023 opens, which will have 60 million euros for new projects.
Among the beneficiaries are MásMóvil, Cellnex, Dekra, with a project that brings together more than a dozen companies within the framework of the Ricardo Valle de Málaga Institute, Teldat or Nokia, which has two projects, one aimed at enabling remote driving of vehicles and another to the implementation of APIs in the networks for new services.
This week, the Ministry headed by Nadia Calviño has resolved the call for Single Rural Demand by selecting Hispasat to provide an affordable Internet service with satellite connectivity for 35 euros per month for rural areas with speeds of less than 50 Mbps.