Executive outlines ‘reprogramming’ in bid to hold onto promised billions
Portugal’s government is in a last minute scramble to save the PRR – the acronym for Europe’s ‘bazooka’ of roughly €16 billion of resilience and recovery funding, created post-pandemic to help kick-start paralysed economies.
The exercise, in the form of a ‘reprogramming of projects’, is due to be sent to the European Commission this month, a source for the executive has told Expresso.
“The order is to accelerate the execution of projects already underway, and at the same time, to make adjustments to ensure execution in their totality of funds before their expiry dates. It is a strategy that is being seen in Belém (the presidential palace) as a “final effort to save the PRR”, says the paper.
“The president understands that everything possible must be done to make use of the PRR, and has even invoked ‘the urgency of the use of European funds’ to promulgate alterations to the Juridical Regime of Instruments of Territorial Planning, that he considers to be ‘a significant twist in the general regime of territorial planning’” – this refers to the president’s rubber-stamping of the new land law, giving councils a much freer rein in using territory for the purposes of building new homes, in spite of his own concerns.
“According to Cohesion minister Manuel Castro Almeida, the reprogramming of the PRR will imply eliminating investments that cannot be executed in the time limits specified. These will be substituted by others”, Expresso continues.
Some will be totally eliminated, according to the minister – who cited the extension of the Lisbon Metro line between Odivelas and Loures, the tender for which saw no takers. In order not to lose funds completely, this project will be removed from the reprogramming to be sent to Brussels.
Otherwise, there will be what the paper’s sources describe as a “reduction of investments” – maintaining part of the project, and part of the finance “as is the case of the works to the Pisão dam”. In these cases, whatever is left out, “will have to be paid in the future with national finance”.
Expresso adds that Portugal “brought forward the sixth PRR payment request in November, making it the second EU state to do so. At the same time, a decree-law was approved by the Council of Ministers that allows the prior review of the execution project for public works contracts to be dispensed with, also in order to speed things up. The measure applies in cases where it is proven that this phase jeopardises the timely execution of the contract, and also risks the loss of funds”.
But all this logistical ‘preparation’ to save the PRR has another hurdle; one that cannot be so easily fixed: there is still a distinct lack of available labour – an argument very often used to justify further unskilled immigration.
RTP recently itemised the list of large-scale projects that are already delayed, insisting that more than half the projects of the PRR are already in this unfortunate basket.
Among projects in delay are those for Hospital de Todos os Santos, in Lisbon, for schools, for public housing and health centres, for ‘green hydrogen’ production.
Source material: Expresso/ RTP
