The European Commission did not receive requests from Portugal to amend the Recovery and Resilience Plan in the regions affected by Storm Kristin, or activate the European civil protection mechanism, instead urging the use of the solidarity fund.
“Portugal has not yet requested changes to the Recovery and Resilience Plan [PRR]. It can still do so, but all revised milestones and targets would have to be implemented by the deadline, which is August 2026. Portugal has the possibility to change the recovery plan, [mas] no request has yet been made”, said the spokesperson for the community executive responsible for Cohesion and Reforms, Maciej Berestecki, at the institution’s daily press conference in Brussels.
The main spokesperson for the European Commission, Paula Pinho, acknowledged that “the damage assessment is still ongoing and, unfortunately, more adverse weather conditions are expected in the coming days, which means that more damage could occur”, considering that, “ideally, the funds that would be applied in a situation like this are the Solidarity Fund and the cohesion policy funds”.
For Paula Pinho, “even more appropriate” than changing the PRR is to resort to the European Union (EU) solidarity fund, a financial instrument created to support Member States and candidate countries affected by major natural disasters or health emergencies.
And, in addition, “I can confirm that, to date, Portugal has not activated the civil protection mechanism”, said Paula Pinho, in response to questions from Lusa.
Maciej Berestecki contextualized that “there are two other instruments that can be used to respond to the damage that affected Portugal”.
“Firstly, the European Union Solidarity Fund, which can be requested by Portugal, and Portugal has 12 weeks to submit its request” after an estimate of the damage, and it is then up to Brussels to evaluate and propose a payment, which must be approved by the Council and Parliament (co-legislators).
Another instrument concerns cohesion policy funds, “which can be reprogrammed by Portugal to respond to the damage caused by the storm”, explained the spokesperson.
Regarding the PRR, Maciej Berestecki indicated that it would always be necessary for the community executive to “analyze the situation when changes are proposed”.
“Therefore, at this stage, I cannot anticipate what could be done with the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism. It would be necessary to analyze the changes proposed by Portugal and then we would know more”, he concluded.
Leave a Reply