Catalonia offers €19,434 and housing to migrants to repopulate rural villages

Housing and €19,434 a year to repopulate villages: only migrant families

Miquel Montarmat wrote to the Micropueblos Association to see if he could join the rural repopulation plan piloted by the Generalitat in small towns. The press office replied that the project is aimed «only at migrant families». He posted it on social media, and the question he left written — «Isn’t that racism?» — sums up the core of a controversy uncovered by e-noticies.cat that continues to simmer. Another citizen, Anthony Sánchez, added: «There are many Catalan young people who would be delighted to repopulate depopulated Catalonia. Why aren’t we helped?».

Behind the row lies a concrete program, with figures and an unusual administrative design. It is called Opportunity 500: work, shelter, and twelve months for migrant families in small municipalities in Catalonia.

What the Opportunity 500 program offers exactly

The Catalan Employment Service (SOC) pays €19,434 gross annually to each worker joining. Each participating municipality provides housing and, in addition, assumes the obligation to find a job for beneficiaries when the 12-month program ends.

The plan is in a pilot phase until October, with the declared intention to extend it to municipalities with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants. Five SOC technicians are responsible for accompanying and guiding participants. Tania Verge is among the promoters, in coordination with the Feminism Ministry.

The requirement that excludes locals

The call is limited to refugees and immigrants with legal status. There are no other entry conditions. The case of Montarmat, who defines himself as an aspirant to repopulate empty Catalonia, activated the accusation of discrimination on ethnic and national grounds: some call it unconstitutional, while others doubt whether the wording will be applied as written.

Part of the discontent goes beyond comparative grievance. It is argued that newcomers will fly away at the first opportunity and that rural life does not interest them; conversely, it is recalled that populations move in cycles and that this empty Spain was filled and emptied before. In between, the usual reproach: that public money has a name and surname, and that the young person next door still lives with his parents.

Is it legal to reserve aid only for migrants?

To date, there is no judicial resolution, formal complaint, or ruling on the matter. The legal reproach circulates as suspicion: a constitutional challenge has been requested to stop the call, and some assume that aid restricted by nationality would not survive the courts. None of this has left the realm of opinion.

Ripoll and the precedent of social aid

The issue links to a previous conflict: the distribution of social aid. The mayor of Ripoll, Sílvia Orriols, argues that the Social Welfare Consortium «benefits immigrants above all and discriminates Ripoll residents», and she has shown support for eliminating clauses she considers favorable to the migrant population so that neighbors can access them on equal terms. She also states that immigrants are not required to declare property or other assets.

Equality of conditions, in its most literal version. The argument, however, applies just as well to the repopulation program: if discrimination is the problem, the solution does not seem to lie in writing another.

The bill: €1,600 a month versus youth unemployment

The €19,434 gross annually amounts to about €1,600 a month, a figure in much of the country above what a young person with a precarious contract earns. From this comes the bulk of the discontent: it is recalled that there are unemployed people earning €800, and SMEs and self-employed people are suffocated, and it is defended that rural employment is better generated by relieving the burden on those already there.

Opposing this is a difficult-to-refute fact: no other administration pays a comparable salary to move to a village, and municipal housing is a scarce resource not distributed equally to everyone.

Paying to repopulate is not a Catalan invention

The World Economic Forum has compiled similar programs: Japan, Portugal, Ireland, and Australia offer incentives to move to rural areas, and in 2020 an Italian village of 115 inhabitants offered up to €8,000 a year for three years. The pandemic and remote work made such moves more viable. The difference is that almost all these plans are open to any resident, not reserved for a specific group.

The awkward detail remains. The same municipality that provides the house must later find the job, and if the village cannot support more, the aid expires, and the newcomer takes his suitcase. A repopulation plan with a 12-month expiration date does not repopulate: it makes a stopover.