Are pre-doctoral research posts normal in Spanish academia?

The successful candidate will be expected to enroll in the Master Program in Analytic Philosophy and to eventually apply for entry into one of the associated PhD programs, to elaborate a PhD dissertation contributing to some of the work-packages into which the project [sc. or ‘research and training network’] is divided. The candidate will be... employed by the University of Barcelona under one-year contract in the first place. The contract can be renewed for a second year, if the candidate is accepted into one of the associated PhD programs and upon satisfactory performance. The candidate will then have the support of the program to get one of the PhD grants offered by different public Spanish institutions, which typically provide 4 years of funding.

Hooking them in early, I suppose: recruiting a postgrad. researcher for their project fresh from the B.A. and paying a salary for only two years, just long enough to get the researcher embedded into their Ph.D. programme. Perhaps this is all completely conventional and above board, and recruiting a researcher for a specific project area without fully funding the post from the project budget is routine practice.