Portugal has expressed its intention to request 3.3 billion euros in additional loans under the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP), the European Commission announced on Wednesday, calling on the country to “move full speed” on implementation.
“It is important to accelerate the implementation [do PRR]including the RepowerEU measures, also in a context in which Portugal requested 3.3 billion euros in additional loans”, declared the executive vice-president of the European Commission with the portfolio of ‘An economy at the service of people’, Valdis Dombrovskis.
The person in charge was speaking at a press conference in Brussels, the day the Community Executive presented the spring package for the European Semester, in which it urged Portugal to end measures to support families and companies due to the energy crisis and to use the ‘slack’ to reduce the deficit, also requesting that the country expedite the implementation of the PRR.
A European source explained to the Lusa agency that, within the framework of the PRR, Portugal expressed “the intention of requesting additional loans, in a range between 3,300 million euros and 11,000 million euros”, when reviewing the plan and including the relative measures to the RepowerEU energy pack.
Another source explained that the country will most likely opt for the 3.3 billion euros, although the specific amount of the additional loans will only be known through the official presentation to the European Commission, which has not yet occurred.
The latter source added that, according to the Portuguese authorities, the revised PRR, including the RepowerEU program, should be presented shortly by Lisbon to Brussels.
Speaking to the press, Valdis Dombrovskis also spoke of “an additional amount of 704 million euros in grants through the RepowerEU programme”.
“All this also requires additional reforms and investments, so it is important that [Portugal] submit the adjusted plan, while continuing to move full speed ahead with implementation,” he said.
The European Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, indicated that, as far as the PRR is concerned, Brussels does not see “special delays”.
“We’re just pushing [o país] finalize the RepowerEU chapter and the successive stages of the plan”, he explained.
The official also highlighted “the challenges that Portugal faces” in budgetary terms.
“First […], the debt ratios are declining and if this trend continues, as is the plan of the Portuguese authorities, this would make it possible to avoid imbalances during the next year; while the second point that we highlight is the fact that house prices have increased considerably in recent years, although this growth is now moderating and the response in terms of policies is considered adequate by the Commission”, advanced Paolo Gentiloni , speaking in a “tendency for the imbalances to go in the right direction” of reduction.
The Portuguese Government has already revealed that it is in talks with the European Commission for the reprogramming of the PRR, in terms of financing and adequacy of projects.
Approved in 2021, the Portuguese PRR has a total endowment of €16.6 billion, €13.9 billion in grants and €2.7 billion in loans.
In information published on the Government website at the time of the public consultation on the review, last April, it is stated that the PRR will have a maximum endowment of 20,600 million euros, “which means an increase of around 2.3 billion euros in grants and 1.6 billion euros in loans, compared to the plan approved in July 2021”.
Source: TSF
