The president of the Mission Structure for the Recovery and Resilience Plan warned, in an interview with DN and TSF, that approved projects that are stalled will either “execute quickly” or lose the approved money.
Fernando Alfaiate explained that the Recover Portugal Mission Structure presented the government with a set of measures to boost and speed up the perception of payments to final beneficiaries, clarifying that this is not a new governance model, but rather “implementing some management measures that can introduce greater effectiveness and efficiency”.
Specifically in relation to the measures to speed up the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), he was clear about the possibility of using the project decommissioning mechanism, “which has already been applied in the past in other cohesion funds”.
He explained that this mechanism can be applied in the case of “projects that have been approved but have stalled and are not being implemented”.
“Then we have to look at these situations and one of two things: either they execute quickly, and they will be given time to react so that this happens, or else this project has to be deactivated and a new project approved with a feasible timeframe in view of the time challenge we have,” said Fernando Alfaiate.
He admitted that “there are projects in which this happens”, in which despite the money available they don’t go ahead, but said he didn’t have any figures for the time being, pointing out that “the PRR notices have had a very high demand for projects and it happens that the demand for applications far exceeds the targets” they have to meet.
According to the official, this has happened, for example, in housing, a sector where the decommissioning measure could also be applied in cases where construction hasn’t started, and with a view to meeting the target of 26,000 homes by 2026.
“Those [constructions] that have not yet started will certainly have to do so very quickly or they will enter that measure […] of captivation and these projects will have to be replaced by others that may have the capacity to execute by that date,” said Fernando Alfaiate.
He added that there will be an “intermediate target, in 2025, with 10,000 homes” and that in 2026 there will be 26,000 homes.
“What we have to do is approve projects with the possibility and planning of implementation for these dates,” he said, pointing out that “the tender closed in April this year and applications for around 53,000 homes were received.”
The president of the PRR Mission Structure explained that the goal is to deliver 26,000 homes to needy families and that the PRR has made 1.407 million euros available for this, to which a further 791 million euros have been added from the State Budget due to the increase in the price of raw materials and labor, bringing the total to 2.198 million euros.
Fernando Alfaiate said that applications have already been approved to absorb “19 and something billion” euros, having exceeded the amount for the RRP in 2023.
The remaining 22 billion “is now being approved” and he said that the aim is that by the end of the year “the vast majority of approvals can be made”.
He said that Portugal is experiencing difficulties in execution similar to other countries and that the execution of the RRP is 32%, close to “the four countries with the highest execution of the 27”, which are Italy, Spain, France and Croatia.
He guaranteed that returning money is not an option and that there is nothing to suggest that the country “might not use the money that is available for this purpose”.
Regarding the possibility of the various countries trying to extend the deadline, Fernando Alfaiate said that it would be difficult, given that it would have to be a unanimous decision by all the countries.
