Catalan Government Agrees on €43 Million Aid Package For Cerdanya and Ripollès

Catalan Government Agrees on €43 Million Aid Package For Cerdanya and Ripollès.

The Catalan Government has agreed on a €43 Million Aid Package for the two counties recently forced into lockdown. Catalonia’s Cerdanya and Ripollès have been in lockdown since last night, the authorities announced the restriction in a last-minute press conference on Tuesday evening, Dec.22. The two counties had already asked for “urgent” government aid to face the economic loss of the lockdown enforced so close to Christmas.

People are only allowed to enter and leave these counties for work, health reasons, to care for dependents, schooling, or reasons of force majeure from December 23 to at least January 6. In addition to this, restaurants must remain shut, as is also the case of indoor sports centres and cultural venues excluding museums and libraries

In these mountainous regions, where many ‘urbanites’ have second homes, especially in Cerdanya, and where visitors flock to in the winter to make the most of the ski season, these measures are likely to deal a severe economic blow to a number of businesses.

Indeed, restaurant owners and workers in Cerdanya took to the streets of Puigcerdà, near the French border, to protest the lockdown on the first day it was in effect.  “There are entire families that live off of this,” lamented Nativitat Bover, the president of Cerdanya’s bars and restaurants association, calling the lockdown “outrageous.”

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