The Portuguese Government announced 100% execution of the Recovery and Resilience Plan, after fulfilling the 44 reforms and targets agreed with the European Commission, securing access to more than 16 billion euros in EU subsidies. The guarantee was presented by the Minister for the Economy and Territorial Cohesion, Manuel Castro Almeida, who assured the completion of all the reform legislation planned.
However, dozens of structural projects remain unfulfilled in several municipalities across the country. To present the targets as met before Brussels, the Executive transferred several priority investments to national financial responsibility, removing them from the EU plan. Around two thousand million euros in interventions thus left the European allocation to be financed by the State Budget.
Among the most affected areas are public housing and transport networks. Several investments in the housing stock suffered significant delays due to labour shortages and rising costs in the construction sector. Railway projects and improvements to health facilities also saw their deadlines extended beyond the deadline required by Brussels.
Minister Manuel Castro Almeida guaranteed that the transfer of these expenses to public coffers would not involve an increase in the tax burden, stating that the Government would maintain good conduct in this regard. Monitoring of physical works will now continue under exclusively national scrutiny throughout the next budget years.
