Portuguese plan meets Brussels’ green, digital targets

The Portuguese Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) to access EU post-crisis Covid-19 funds foresees that 47% of the funds are aimed at environmental sustainability, while 38% are for digital transformation, higher than Brussels’ requirements.

After a draft presented to the European Commission last October and a process of talks with Brussels, the Portuguese government on Tuesday puts the preliminary and summarized version of the RRP out to public consultation, in which it guarantees to have a document “aligned with the relevant pillars of the policy” of the European Union (EU).

One of these pillars is the ‘green’ transition, area in which “the Portuguese RRP surpasses the threshold of 37% of its global investment with allocation to climate transition objectives, with a total of 47%,” the government said in the document.

This means that, of the total 13.9 billion euros in grants from the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, the main instrument of the new Recovery Fund of the European Union, Portugal plans to allocate 6.5 billion euros to climate transition.

The 37% target for ‘green’ issues was one of the requirements set by Brussels for member states’ national resilience and recovery plans, to which is added the obligation to dedicate at least 20% of the funds to digital transformation.

Also regarding the digital target, “the RRP integrates investments that exceed the 20% threshold, with the direct contribution of seven of the 19 components,” the government added.

Around 5.3 billion euros of the total subsidies allocated to Portugal, 38% of the total, will be used for digital transition.

The EU executive also requires that countries relate their national plans to the recommendations that have been made within the European Semesters, including in 2019.

On this issue, the government said that the RRP “promotes interventions of structural change, aligned with the conclusions on the obstacles and challenges that Portugal faces, referenced in the documents published under the European Semester”.

This is because the national plan responds to “four major areas of concern” included in the recommendations made by Brussels under the European Semester, such as the need to ensure financial and institutional resilience, to boost the labour market and improve skills, to promote public and private investment and to improve the context conditions for businesses and citizens.

The European Commission also requires countries to have adequate control systems in place for these EU funds.