Portugal ends 2021 leading EU fund implementation among states with budgets over €7B

Portugal ended 2021 leading the average execution of certified expenditure of EU funds, among the countries with the largest financial envelopes, having received from Brussels 68.4% of the total allocation for 2014-2020, the government announced Monday.

“Portugal ended 2021 leading the ranking of Member States with the best execution of EU funds. Among countries with budgets over €7 billion, Portugal has already received 68.4% of reimbursement payments from the European Commission,” the Ministry of Planning said in a statement.

Portugal’s execution is thus seven percentage points above the EU average.

Poland (67.9%), Lithuania (67.8%), Czech Republic (67%) and Hungary (66.8%) are next in terms of payout.

At the bottom of the table, considering the countries with the largest financial envelopes, are Croatia (48.6%), Slovakia (50.3%) and Romania (53%).

The ministry under Nelson de Souza also highlighted that the data now disclosed are the result of the “strong acceleration of the execution of funds, having been reached the second-best performance ever in terms of annual execution”.

For the government, conditions have been created to take advantage of Portugal 2020 (PT 2020) until 2023, when this community framework ends.

With an overall allocation of around €26 billion, the PT 2020 programme consists of a partnership agreement between Portugal and the European Commission, “which establishes the programming principles and priorities for the economic, social and territorial development policy of Portugal, between 2014 and 2020”.

The first calls for proposals of the PT 2020 programme were opened in 2015.