The execution of some projects financed by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) will have been compromised due to the weather storms that hit the country, especially the Center and South regions, since Wednesday last week, January 28th.
In that regard, Prime Minister Luís Montenegro revealed this Thursday, at the press conference that followed the extraordinary council of ministers on the responses to be given to populations, companies and the economy, that he is “in contact” with the European Commission (EC) in order to find a solution that ensures that all investments and works underway or planned within the scope of the PRR are completed.
In other words, that the projects that have been put on hold or have been interrupted due to the very adverse climate (the PM did not identify them), reach a successful conclusion: that they are executed on time and that the respective European funds are received without long delays.
According to Montenegro, “we do not want and will not fail to execute any investment that is underway under the PRR”.
To this end, “we are in contact with the European Commission to find the best model to guarantee what I have just stated and we already have some formulas under discussion”.
“I don’t want to advance them yet, but I want to ensure that we will not stop executing the projects, nor will we stop having access to the financing that is available to us.”
“Secondly, regarding the macroeconomic scenario, at the moment it is not our concern”, that is, the government maintains the perspective that, despite this tragedy, the Portuguese economy will be able to grow 2.3% this yearas stated and based on the State Budget for 2026.
“Right now, our concern is to help people first and help institutions”, then “public institutions have to recover their equipment and infrastructure to serve people and then private institutions”.
All of this “naturally serves to boost our economy, serving people also through this, we are acting on several fronts”, insisted the prime minister.
The PRR is an envelope of special European funds, designed for European countries to recover from the economic destruction caused by the pandemic.
The Portuguese plan is worth around 22 billion euros and must be fully implemented by mid-August this year.
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