Recovery plan ‘intense work’ but ‘Portugal knew how to respond’

Portugal’s minister of planning, Nelson de Souza, on Tuesday said that the Recovery and Resilience Plan was intense and challenging work but that the country knew how to respond after Brussels disbursed €2.2 billion to Portugal.

He added a word of gratitude to the European Commission and its services for their availability and cooperation, recognising the work done by the technicians and diplomats of the Portuguese Administration.

“Without further delay, we have already moved on to the implementation phase of the [Plan] investments and reforms,” Nelson de Souza said, noting that Portugal is already making good use of the resources that have now been effectively made available.

On Tuesday, the European Commission disbursed €2.2 billion to Portugal for the pre-financing of 13% of the Recovery and Resilience Plan, a total of €16.6 billion, approved last month.

Portugal, which was the first member state to formally deliver in Brussels its national plan to access the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism funds – a central element of the “NextGenerationEU” package agreed in the EU to overcome the Covid-19 crisis – and the first to see it approved, is thus also among the first countries to receive funds, along with Belgium and Luxembourg, which also received today disbursements of €770 million and €12.1 million, respectively.

Stressing that this payment will help launch the implementation of key investment and reform measures outlined in Portugal’s recovery and resilience plan, the EU executive said that it would authorise further disbursements depending on the pace of implementation of the investments and reforms described in that plan.