The President of the Government was calm this Monday with the pace of execution of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) and stressed that those who have executive responsibilities must comply with the plan without anxiety and without worrying about feeding the news.
This overview of the evolution of the implementation of community funds in Portugal was supported by António Costa in a statement to journalists, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, during his first of two days of participation in the United Nations Conference on the Climate Change (COP27). .
Given the warnings from the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and other political leaders about the existence of delays in the execution of European funds by Portugal, especially at the PRR level, the leader of the Portuguese executive assured that is following this process “very calmly”.
“A program that is going to be executed at the end of 2026 is not going to be finished at the end of 2022. It is going to be carried out in the exact terms in which it was contracted and programmed, and that is what is happening”, he is stressed.
then antonio costa differentiated between executive and supervisory functions.
Who directs and has executive responsibilities, must plan and execute according to the plan, without living with anxieties, or with the concern of breaking the news or making news by news. Our concern should be to execute these funds well. And whoever has the function of supervising the work of others must fulfill this function”, he pointed out.
In this context, he then referred to the control bodies, starting with the Court of Auditors, “which checks whether the funds are being used well or not”.
“It is natural that the General Treasury Inspectorate did it and that the President of the Republic did it as well. Anyone who is supervised must find it normal to be supervised. But what you need to do is not get distracted by inspections and focus on actions. That is what executives are for: to act, to do to achieve”, he emphasized.
In front of the journalists The prime minister pointed out that the execution schedule of the PRR “is provided for in the contract itself, it has dates, and for each date there are goals and milestones.”
“The way to check if you are ahead or behind is if we have reached the objectives and reached the milestones. Now, in relation to the first set, the European Commission has not only validated, but has already paid accordingly. As for the second set, it has already been delivered in Brussels and is being validated by the European Commission,” he said.
So far, in the opinion of António Costa, “there has been no difficulty” and Brussels “will surely proceed to pay the second tranche in the near future”.
“And we will continue working to comply with the third, fourth, fifth and all successive sections, so that by December 31, 2026 we will have impeccably executed the PRR,” he added.
According to the prime minister, regarding the first stage, Portugal “has met all the objectives and milestones, and the European Commission has already made the first payment.”
We have already completed the second cycle of objectives and milestones, we have already presented it to the European Commission and it is currently being verified. Therefore, I am convinced that between November and December, the European Commission will pay the second tranche of this programme. For this reason, we have been executing at the rate that the programs have to be executed”, reinforced António Costa.
Still in relation to the PRR, the Prime Minister also tried to point out that “a large part will be carried out not directly by the State but by companies, municipalities, Private Institutions of Social Solidarity (IPSS) or non-governmental organizations.”
“And everyone is mobilized to be able to implement it. Last Friday, the Minister of the Presidency [Mariana Vieira da Silva] had the opportunity to announce that the first billion euros have already been paid and are in progress. Therefore, the country can rest easy with our collective ability to execute the PRR,” she added.
Source: Observadora
