The Government creates the Roman Heritage Consortium of Tarraco

TarragonaIt was one of the region's long-standing demands, and after many meetings and negotiations, it has become a reality: the Catalan Government agreed this Tuesday to create the Roman Heritage Consortium of Tarraco. The new institution will be comprised of the Tarragona City Council, the Department of Culture of the Generalitat of Catalonia, and the Catalan Agency for Cultural Heritage. The Tarragona Provincial Council, the Ministry of Culture, the Archdiocese of Tarragona, and the municipalities of Altafulla, Constantí, and Roda de Berà will also participate at a different level. The consortium's main function will be to provide it with sufficient funding to guarantee the maintenance and promotion of the Roman remains. Until now, the Tarragona City Council had to request annual funding from other levels of government to help finance the maintenance of the city's heritage. This situation condemned the City Council to never having a guaranteed, sustained investment over time and also to having to settle for insufficient funding. The city's mayor, Rubén Viñuales, criticized the situation in December 2024, stating that it forced the City Council to "beg" to guarantee the maintenance of the heritage, which is as valuable as it is expensive. The Consortium's budget will be 8 million euros annually between 2026 and 2029, with contributions of approximately 3.6 million euros per year from the Generalitat (Catalan Government), 2.5 million euros per year from the Tarragona City Council, and 100,000 euros per year from the Tarragona Provincial Council. In addition, current income generated by the monuments themselves, projected at between 1.7 and 2 million euros, will be included. The Consortium will also manage the investments planned by the Ministry of Culture. It's important to remember that the archaeological site of Tarraco has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000, and this designation mandates its proper maintenance. In fact, the need to create this consortium, which already exists in other cities with Roman remains such as Mérida, was included in the Tarragona Heritage Management Plan, drawn up in 2015 and revised in 2017 and 2021, and already submitted to the UNESCO Centre in Paris.