Obtaining concrete results resulting from the Resolution and Resilience Plan (PRR) of most European Union (EU) countries is, broadly speaking, a big unknown for the main auditor of EU budgets, the European Court of Auditors ( CEFR).
It is true that in many countries, including Portugal, there has not yet been time to see the results (performance) of the application of the PRR at project level (progress), according to the Court of Auditors in this first audit of the monitoring of the various PRRs, published Tuesday Friday, warn that “it is not possible to properly measure the overall performance of the European Union Recovery Fund.”
In any case, the Court commends the Portuguese authorities for at least being able to check information relating to the national PRR in a “highly automated” manner.
“The PRR information system in Portugal, based on a single login authentication method and providing an interface with all local information systems, is an example of highly automated data transfer” and in this respect the country deserves to be positively highlighted. Five examples of PRR control systems were studied: Portugal, Greece, France, Italy and Romania.
According to ECA advisor Ivana Maletić, responsible for this new research, “in the case of Portugal, we have emphasized the importance of the quality of the data that is actually sent to the European Commission to be published in the scoreboard. [scoreboard] And in that sense, the chance of errors is smaller if we have a highly automated system, as is the case.”
“If everything is done manually and then transferred across many agencies, there can be a lot of data quality issues. This is not to say that in the case of Portugal there are not other weaknesses related to the milestones and objectives of the common indicators, for example data that do not fit into the common indicators, but in terms of data quality they have done their utmost done to reduce the risk of information quality,” emphasized the same responsible person.
Furthermore, the TCE’s assessment of the PRR’s overall controls is devastating.
“Although milestones and goals [indicadores de progressão] help monitor progress in implementing reforms and investments in Member States, they are merely implementation steps (e.g. passing a law, selecting projects or signing contracts),” the judges noted.
The problem, the TCE emphasizes, is that these references (milestones and objectives) “focus strongly on what the projects finance (for example the number of people in training, the square meters renovated or the number of electric cars purchased), rather than on measuring of the results (e.g. number of people employed, savings in energy consumption and reduction in carbon dioxide emissions)’.
In other words, “the EU Recovery Fund gives Member States more money than ever before, but citizens need to know whether the fundamental objectives of the fund are being achieved and how the money is being spent,” Ivana Maletić told journalists at a press conference. which took place in Luxembourg, where the institution’s headquarters are located.
Contradiction
According to the advisor, “we are in a contradictory situation where the largest fund in the EU, supposedly based on performance, allows us to measure progress, but not the performance itself”.
Progress indicators are largely quantitative objectives, while performance reflects the actual results achieved.
As mentioned, if progress is measured, for example, by more people receiving vocational training, but if this does not result in more and better jobs, this means that the performance of that measure and the money or investment invested in it is mediocre are, zero. or negative.
The funds
The mechanism financing the PRR, including that of Portugal, “should distribute €723 billion over the next three to four years, i.e. up to €338 billion in non-refundable grants and €385 billion in loans.”
“This fund is intended to finance reforms and investments by member states, for example in the labor market or in the field of nature conservation.”
In the case of Portugal, with the reprogramming recently approved by the European Economic and Financial Council (Ecofin), the PRR is worth over €22 billion in subsidies and cheap loans, but this money needs to be spent, the vast majority of it, until the end of 2026, under penalty of loss.
So far, the implementation of the Portuguese PRR (progress) will amount to around 17% of the total, with the transfer of 4.1 billion euros in grants and 1.1 billion in loans announced. It remains to be seen how these funds will actually perform and what concrete results they will deliver for the country.
Source: DN
