In Portugal, the question arises, and rightly so, why doesn’t the European Union (EU) extend the deadline for using the funds from the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR)?
This extension of the deadline already made sense taking into account the lack of these funds to respond to such serious problems as housing, transport, health, education, daycare centers or social support. Now, in Portugal these funds are even more needed considering the increased needs resulting from the devastating impacts of Storm Kristin.
The problem is that, while in Portugal there are those who have been making this appeal for a long time based on the needs that the national reality highlights, in the EU the possibility of spending these funds on prolonging the war in Ukraine is now being discussed.
Instead of extending the deadline for the PRR funds (or, in its European dimension, the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism – MRR – which frames the national PRRs) to be used for what was initially planned, the EU institutions are now discussing the possibility of diverting the unused MRR funds to finance the €90 billion loan with which they intend to continue to fuel the prolongation of the war in Ukraine in the coming years.
This option, if realized, could mean another burden for the next multiannual budget of the European Union (the Multiannual Financial Framework 2028-2034) which will leave even less budgetary margin for community programs and funds intended for other purposes that are very necessary for the people and their well-being, namely cohesion, agriculture, fisheries or science. But the worst of all is what this decision means in terms of the political choice that is made.
Priorities are turned upside down.
Instead of investing in building and restoring homes, it is investing in the war that destroys them. Instead of investing in people’s health and lives, it is investing in their death. Instead of investing in improving living conditions, development and peace, it is investing in the arms business, in death and destruction.
It is incomprehensible that, with these funds available, the deadline for their use is not extended so that they can be fully utilized.
It is even more incomprehensible that this refusal to extend the deadline for the use of MRR/PRR funds is accompanied by the intention of diverting them to prolong the war and finance the business that feeds on it.
But it would be absolutely unacceptable for the Portuguese government to be complicit in such a monstrous decision, especially given the needs that the populations are going through.
The Portuguese government is expected to refuse that diversion of funds from the MRR/PRR, not only because it represents an unacceptable political option but also to defend the interests of the people and the country.
* MEP
*Write without applying the new Orthographic Agreement
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