The National Association of Portuguese Municipalities (ANMP) today defended the negotiation, with the European Commission, of postponing the deadline for the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), with 41% of the funds currently being used.
“To better understand what is at stake, the PRR has a total allocation of 22.216 million euros and, in mid-November, 9.7 million euros had been financially implemented (41%), which means that around 13 million euros remain to be executed by mid-2026”, warn the mayors, in the Local Financing document to which Lusa had access and which was presented at the XXVII Congress of the ANMP.
Thus, the ANMP proposes “the negotiation, with the European Commission (EC), of postponing the deadline for implementing the PRR, more than justified by the constraints existing in the market and the overlap of two community financing programs”.
In the document whose rapporteur was Ricardo Leão, president of the Chamber of Loures, the ANMP also requests that the transfer of unconsumed funds to the next programming period 2028-2034 be negotiated with the EC.
The municipalities also expect the Government to “define alternative strategies to finance the interventions approved by the PRR that will not be completed in time, namely schools and health centers”.
“For this purpose, a financing mechanism similar to that adopted for housing (using funds from the EIB and the OE) could be considered”, they point out.
The local authorities also want “an upward update of reference values/standard costs, in accordance with inflation and the evolution of market values, given that in several situations they are considered insufficient and outdated (for example: housing, health centers and daycare centers/kindergartens)”.
Regarding the financing of Portugal 2030, provided with 22.9 million euros, at the end of October the volume of payments was “only 2.8 million euros (12% of the total)”.
“20.1 million euros remain to be executed by 2030, with demanding intermediate targets already at the end of this year and next”, they warn.
The president of the Porto Metropolitan Council (CmP), Pedro Duarte, said on Friday that he will request a meeting from the Minister of Economy and Territorial Cohesion to discuss the execution of community funds, namely the PRR.
Speaking to journalists at the end of the CmP meeting, Pedro Duarte stated that the execution of community funds is a concern for mayors, especially for those who recently started their duties following the municipal elections on October 12th.
At the same meeting, the mayor of Vila Nova de Gaia, Luís Filipe Menezes, considered that, in this matter, the Government “cannot wash its hands completely” because the “excessive bureaucracy” does not help in the execution of the funds.