With EU funding, one billion goes to monuments and information technologies for municipalities

Prague - The Ministry for Regional Development will release more than one billion crowns for the restoration of monuments and the introduction of information technologies in municipalities. Nineteen projects are applying for 621 million crowns for monument restoration, while municipalities are seeking 400 million with a total of 215 applications. This was reported today by MMR spokesperson Radka Burketová.
Candidates for funding for monuments from the Integrated Operational Program could apply since the end of April. The funds can also be used for expanding the use of monuments for the public, in addition to their restoration.
For example, the Roman Catholic parish in Velehrad or the Premonstratensians from the Želiv Monastery in the Pelhřimov area have requested funding for the reconstruction of a church. European funds could also be used for the repair of the pilgrimage site at Svatá Hora in Příbram, Loket Castle, the Church of St. James the Greater in Jihlava, and St. Wenceslas Basilica in Stará Boleslav, for the revitalization of Jewish monuments, or for the restoration of the cultural landscape of the National Stud Farm Kladruby nad Labem.
An educational and presentation center for UNESCO cultural heritage could be established in the Dačický House in Kutná Hora using EU funds, while a restoration center could be created at Špilberk in Brno. The National Heritage Institute has applied for funds for the catacombs and the Moorish waterworks in Lednice in the Břeclav region.
Municipalities could submit applications for support in the introduction of information technologies since mid-February. They will also obtain funding from the Integrated Operational Program; the projects are expected to enhance data security, electronicize processes, and digitize data to speed up the work of the authorities.
ICT projects that meet the requirements will receive recommendations for support in the order in which applicants submitted their requests for grants. "Interest in this call was enormous. The demand exceeds the prepared financial allocation by approximately 300 million crowns," said Minister for Regional Development Věra Jourová.
In the programming period from 2007 to 2013, the Czech Republic could have obtained around 700 billion crowns in subsidies from Brussels. However, in terms of drawing European funds, the Czech Republic is the worst in the entire EU. Last year, it did not draw nearly ten billion crowns. This year, there is a risk that the Czech Republic will lose another 24 billion crowns. The Ministry for Regional Development, which coordinates the grant programs, estimates that a total of about 60 billion crowns is at risk of being unspent by the end of the current programming period.