António Costa insists on the urgency of national parliaments ratifying recovery fund

Portugal’s prime minister on Monday welcomed Slovakia’s ratification of the EU own resources decision and insisted that it is urgent to complete national procedures to get the recovery and resilience fund off the ground.

“I welcome Slovakia’s ratification of the decision on the European Union’s Own Resources system. I renew my call for ratification by the remaining member states. Urgent to get the economic and social recovery underway,” António Costa wrote on his personal account on the social network Twitter.

Last month, following the last European Council meeting and at a time when no constitutional issue with Germany was known, the prime minister of Portugal, the country that presides over the Council of the European Union until June, expressed confidence that the process of ratification of the Recovery and Resilience plans of the 27 member states would be completed by mid-April.

At the same press conference, at the Centro Cultural de Belém in Lisbon, António Costa said he would like to have the Portuguese programme approved by the end of this month.

“With a fair amount of certainty, my conviction is that by mid-April all member states will have completed their ratification,” he stated.

According to Costa, at the moment, of the 27 member states only four (Austria, Poland, Hungary and the Netherlands) do not yet have a defined timetable for the national ratification of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP).

“There is a common goal for all to complete the process by mid-April. Just last week, in an important effort by the Portuguese presidency, one of the issues blocking ratification by the Baltic States was overcome with the European Parliament,” he said.

Earlier this month, however, the German Constitutional Court prohibited the President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, from signing the ratification of the recovery fund.

The decision was known a day after the German parliament, the Bundestag, approved the law allowing the European bloc to increase its own resources to issue €750 billion of common debt that will finance this aid. At issue is an appeal filed by the group “Bündnis Bürgerwille” on behalf of 2,200 citizens, questioning its constitutionality, arguing that the plan violates European treaties by opening the door to joint borrowing by member states.