EU’s £1.4bn for Wales in last five years
THE EU has invested £1.4bn in 163 projects over the past five years to help create jobs and support the economy in Wales.
That’s funding which has or will arrive through European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) between 2014 and 2020.
The figure includes money from the European Social Fund (focusing on skills and jobs) and the European Regional Development Fund (which focuses on correcting regional imbalances).
The data was compiled by myeu.uk – a website which allows you view areas and projects in the UK that have received funding from the EU.
Although this funding represents a large chunk of money from the EU, it doesn’t tell the full story.
As well as the £1.4bn in structural and investment funds, Wales has benefited from science funding from the EU’s Horizon 2020 scheme, as well as money other EU funds, including Common Agricultural policy funding which goes towards farmers.
Of course, these EU funds are created from a budget which includes the amount that the UK pays into the EU each year.
The ESIF projects that received that largest amount of EU support in Wales were:
■ The Welsh Government Department for Education and Skills’s Apprenticeships project – £103,090,000;
■ Finance Wales Plc’s Wales Business Fund (Supported by ERDF) WWV 2.1 FI project – £74,800,000;
■ the Welsh Government Department for Education and Skills’s Apprenticeships Skills Enhancement Programme I project – £71,590,000;
■ the Welsh Government Department for Education and Skills’ Traineeships project – £58,100,000; and
■ the Welsh Government Department of Local Government and Communities’s Building for the Future project – £38,000,000.
John Lees-Miller, one of the volunteers who helped put together myeu. uk, said: “Before we started working on myeu.uk, we had completely tuned out of the Brexit debate.
“It was all very negative and depressing, so we wanted to do something to highlight the positive impact that the EU has had on the UK.
“We found a lot of data, but it was hidden away in databases and spreadsheets.
“By putting the data on a map, we hope to make it easy for everyone to see some of the things the EU has done for their local area.
“We’ve learned that there are many different kinds of EU funding that come from different organisations within the EU.
“They each report on their activities independently, which makes it challenging to see the big picture sometimes.
“We started the project at a hackathon organised by TechForUK and BestForBritain. We’ve also worked with NHS Digital to find out how many NHS nurses and doctors are from the EU in each trust.”