The reimbursement period will be extended for the purposes of eligibility for expenses in PT 2020, in accordance with the diploma approved by the Council of Ministers.
The Government approved the extension of the reimbursement period for PT 2020. The council of ministers approved the decree-law to extend this period with the aim of “avoiding the loss of European funds that, in the different instruments, since PT 2020, the PRR, the PT 2030 is delayed, it is much further behind than the country knew,” indicates the Minister of the Presidency, Leitão Amaro.
Castro Almeida, Minister of Cohesion responsible for European funds, had already indicated that the deadline for the eligibility of expenses would be August 31.
The official indicated, in a press conference after the council of ministers, that the Government has been taking measures “to accelerate the implementation of European funds and inject more money into the economy and allow Portugal to grow more.”
PT 2020 reached 99.6% execution and 112% commitment at the end of February, according to the latest program data. For its part, the achievement rate stood at 89%. PT 2020 ended in 2020, with three more years left to complete its implementation. The beneficiaries of PT2020 have already received 26.4 billion euros, which corresponds to 98% of the programmed funds.
December 31, 2023 was the deadline for promoters to make and pay expenses, but not the end of the program. Until the end of July 2024, beneficiaries can submit reimbursement requests to the managing authorities of the respective programs. In turn, the managing authorities carry out controls, validate and pay expenses, while the certifying authority analyzes and formalizes the latest payment request for the operational programs.
Leitão Amaro reinforces that the PRR and the PT 2030 “arrived extraordinarily late”, and that is why he accused the previous Government of having spent more expenses and of committing expenses that were not budgeted, but that were not executed, such as those planned for the execution of European funds.
In the case of European funds, the current Government indicates that it is one of the issues about which it has warned. “We found a situation of low execution in the PRR and the PT 2030 and even some situations that we dealt with here in the previous framework that is about to conclude, which is much worse than expected, in line with some warnings from the President of the Republic. who drew attention to the lack of momentum and execution of the PRR. This is one of the areas that Portugal needed to have much more.” The bazooka was being “insufficiently used and executed.”
Source: Observadora
