The European Commission responded favorably this Friday to the request of Portugal and other Member States so that the investment programs of the Recovery and Resilience Plans (PRR) can be rescheduled, given the “abnormally high” prices, revealed the President of the Government , Anthony Costa. .
At a press conference at the end of a European Council in Brussels, which focused this Friday on the economic situation in Europe in light of the war started by Russia in Ukraine, António Costa said he believed that there is currently no need to increase the Union’s financial resourcesbefore the measures already adopted, namely, the anti-crisis bazooka (the “NextGenerationEU”), pointing out that several countries, including Portugal, defended the possibility of rescheduling “the calendar, not of reforms, but of investments” of their national plans.
“As is well known, the European Union decided to take a big step towards supporting investment with the creation of “NextGeneration”, that is, the program that allows each country to have Recovery and Resilience Plans (PRR) in this moment). to carry out, which is an enormous budgetary support that is given to the reinforcement of the investment”, he began by pointing out.
Costa added that, “in the context of the energy transition”, the European Commission also presented “the “RepowerEU” proposal, which also provides for a reprogramming of funds, or an additional €20 billion program for the EU as a whole investments in the energy area to accelerate this energy transition”.
“Therefore, I don’t think there is a problem at the moment of the need to increase the resources to be transferred by the EU. What several States, in particular Portugal, were asking for, and to which the Commission responded favourably, was precisely the possibility of rescheduling the schedule, not of reforms, but of investments, so that we are not forced to contract at a time when prices , namely for construction materials, are abnormally high, and that is obviously the worst time to start making contracts,” he explained.
“Therefore, if there is some flexibility here for a few months in the execution of these contracts, this without major damage to the execution of the PRR, gives another flexibility and allows us to avoid spending money that was not spent. That was the main concern.”
This month, the President of the Republic also admitted that the European Union extend the deadline for member states to implement recovery and resilience plans if the war in Ukraine continues.
Marcelo admits that it may be necessary for the EU to extend the deadline for the execution of the PRR
“Everything that is discussed is discussed at a European level and there has to be an agreement. I think the war is creating such a different situation that there are things that will have to change and are changing”, declared Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, when asked about an interview granted by the Minister of the Presidency to Rádio Renascença and the newspaper Público. , in which Mariana Vieira da Silva affirms that in the European framework “there are already discussions on how to address the PRR objectives” taking into account “a significant increase in prices” and “difficulties in accessing some raw materials”.
The Portuguese RRP includes investments and reforms in 20 thematic components, amounting to €13.9 billion in grants and €2.7 billion in loans.
Source: Observadora
