The Minister of Economy and Territorial Cohesion, Manuel Castro Almeida, defended that Portugal will have to get used to living without EU funds and financing public investment with its own resources, at a time when the Recovery and Resilience Plan comes to an end. At a press conference, the minister considered that this lesser dependence on Brussels represents an advance and that the country must prepare to dedicate a larger slice of the State Budget to public investment, especially because the money from the European Commission will fall considerably in the coming years.
Castro Almeida praised the PRR extensively, calling it the largest project of the public administration ever. The programme, which ultimately reached 22.2 billion euros after reprogramming, was fully executed, with 101% of the amount contractualized to fulfill 100%. The minister argued that the 1% excess serves to guarantee full execution of the envelope, demonstrating that there is not less ambition, but rather more.
Regarding the works that will be removed from the Plan, the minister clarified that these are projects that were not physically possible to execute within the deadline and that will be financed by PT2030. These works transition to regional operational programmes, where it will be necessary to assess the availability to accommodate this transition, while operating expenses after completion will be the responsibility of each ministry.
The IFIC (Financial Instrument for Innovation and Competitiveness) was also highlighted as an excellent innovation of the PRR, for strengthening the competitiveness of national companies and allowing the exchange of investments that were not possible to execute within the deadline for others. The PRR was a European funds programme aimed at transforming the European economy, strengthening resistance to external shocks through investments in competitiveness, innovation, digitization and decarbonization.
