Recovery, resilience plan expenditure outlay well below forecast in 2021
According to the CFP, the implementation of expenditure in 2021 under the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) was €410 million lower than forecast in the state budget.
The implementation of expenditure in 2021 under the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) was €410 million lower than forecast in the state budget and €600 million lower than estimated in the stability programme, according to the CFP.
“In the first year of implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP), expenditure associated with this important structuring support from the European Union fell far short of the government’s forecast, resulting in an execution amount of €90 million compared to the €500 million considered in the POE/2021 [draft state budget for 2021] (i.e. less than 20% of the forecast),” said the Public Finance Board (CFP), in a report released on Thursday.
According to the report “Budgetary Developments in General Government in 2021”, “budgetary developments in 2021 revealed an execution of the RRP well below what was anticipated in those two budgetary programming documents”.
Based on data from the national statistical institute (INE), the CFP indicates that the amount executed in expenditure was €90 million, with its greatest expression occurring in capital expenditure.
Gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) absorbed the largest amounts of expenditure, followed on a smaller scale by “other capital expenditure”, which mainly reflected investment support to families through the more sustainable buildings programme, the analysis indicates.
Thus, the implementation of expenditure in 2021 under the RRP was €410 million and €600 million lower than expected respectively in the draft state budget for 2021 (OE2021) and the 2021-25 stability programme, reflecting a level of implementation that was below 20%.
“Part of this discrepancy is explained by the fact that some entities only received the funds under the RRP at the end of the year, which made it impossible to apply them to expenditure provided for in the plan,” explains the CFP.
The institution led by Nazaré Costa Cabral notes that in 2021, the first year of implementation of the RRP, the expenditure provided for in the draft state budget for 2021 totalled €500 million to be applied to GFCF, while under the 2021-25 stability programme, presented in April of that same year, the forecast for 2021 raised to €691 million the expenditure to be made under that plan.
