11/03/2014
A delegation from Bolivia's Ministry of Autonomies (MA) and State Autonomy Service (SEA) visits Spain to carry out a knowledge exchange with Spanish civil servants organized by the FIIAPP.
El Director de la FIIAPP, Pedro Flores, en reunión con la delegación bolivianaFIIAPP Director, Pedro Flores, meeting with the Bolivian delegation
The Vice Minister of Departmental and Municipal Autonomies, Gisela López, headed the Bolivian state delegation which visited Spain on the 3rd and 4th of March to assimilate mechanisms and ways of distributing resources for reducing territorial imbalances. The Vice Minister expressed the importance of this activity within the framework of the assistance that EUROsociAL—a project being led by the FIIAPP—is providing in the process of preparing the Law on the Productive and Solidarity Fund (FDPS) and the construction of the Fiscal Compact in her country: “We want to find experiences that enable us to take decisions as a State to narrow these gaps in equity that exist in the area of tax resources”.
Over the course of these two days, the Bolivian delegation had the opportunity to learn how the Constitutional Court resolves conflicts in competencies between the central government and the Self-Governing Communities, and to gain a deeper understanding of the community financing model by visiting the Ministry of Taxation of the Government of Castilla la Mancha and the Secretariat of State of Public Administrations of the Ministry of Taxes and Public Administrations. The President of the Constitutional Court, Francisco Pérez de los Cobos, the Secretary of State, Antonio Beteta, and the Tax Minister of Castilla la Mancha, Arturo Romaní Sancho, welcomed the Vice Minister.
“EUROsociAL is very valuable for us to the extent that it can help to make the process of consolidating the autonomies under consideration by the Bolivian government more sustainable and to achieve greater equity in terms of the availability of economic resources”, emphasized Gisela López at the conclusion of the visit.
After its stay in Madrid, the delegation visited Poland’s Voivodeship (similar to the concept of a “province” under the Spanish model) of Mazovia and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Development to learn how this country manages Structural Funds, and to gain a deeper understanding of the criteria used for territorial distribution of resources.
