The Prime Minister announced on Wednesday that Brussels has partially approved the third and fourth disbursement of PRR funds. Part of the amount will be withheld, but António Costa says the majority of the money will be paid out.
“About 2,600 million euros will be released,” António Costa announced, emphasizing that “most of the measures have been completed and the three that are not considered completed are in progress.”
Brussels retains 800 billion euros, the disbursement of which depends on the promulgation of part of the diplomas related to three PRR reforms.
“One has to do with the very important reform of the professional orders, which is fundamental to guarantee greater freedom of access to the profession, greater freedom in the practice of the profession and, above all, to ensure that young people will have greater opportunities to access regulated professions,” he stressed. the prime minister.
Costa emphasized that the President of the Republic “has already promulgated the diplomas for fourteen of the reforms”, and believes that the reform of the professional orders will also start very soon.
“The Assembly of the Republic has already scheduled the debate on the veto and I hope that it confirms these diplomas and this will make it possible in the coming months to release the part of the budget that will not be paid because we have not yet completed. reform,” he emphasized.
“The other [reforma] It has to do with the diploma promulgated by the President of the Republic yesterday, but which will not enter into force until January 1 and therefore only from then on will the reform be considered complete. [sobre] the establishment of integrated accountability centers in hospitals”.
The third reform that needs to be implemented concerns decentralization in healthcare. However, António Costa states that the process is in full swing.
“The date the Commission took into account was December 6 [e]“Since then, many municipalities have signed,” said António Costa. As an example, he states that “just last week the mayor of Porto – who was one of the main opponents of this decentralization process initially” – also adhered to it. to this decentralization process”.
“At the moment we are less than twenty municipalities away from signing, so that we can also receive,” the Prime Minister said in Brussels at the entrance to the summit with the Balkans, where he guaranteed this for the “coming months”. Portugal will be able to receive the full amount of 3,400 million from the third and fourth disbursement requests for the recovery and resilience programme.
Source: DN
