The Prime Minister announced this Wednesday that the European Commission had partially approved the last two PRR requests and had not approved them in full due, in part, to the veto of the President of the Republic on reforms of professional orders.
“The European Commission will soon announce that it has approved Portugal’s third and fourth request for payment under the Recovery and Resilience Plan. [PRR]. Approximately 2,600 million euros will be released. Most of the measures have been considered implemented, and three that are not considered implemented are in the process of being implemented,” António Costa told reporters upon his arrival at the summit between the European Union (EU) and the Western Balkans in Brussels.
The outgoing Prime Minister added that one of the measures to be carried out by the Commission “is related to a very important reform of professional practices, fundamental to ensuring greater freedom of access to the profession, greater freedom to exercise professional activities.” and, above all, to ensure that young people have more opportunities to access regulated professions.”
“As you know, the President of the Republic has vetoed some of these diplomas,” said António Costa, considering that if the Assembly of the Republic confirms the diplomas vetoed by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, “this will make it possible in the coming months to release part of the funds that have not been paid, will be paid,” and these repairs have not yet been completed.
There are still two reforms to be implemented, one of which, the Prime Minister continued, is related to the diploma on the creation of integrated responsibility centers in hospitals, which the President of the Republic unveiled on Tuesday, “but which will only come into force on January 1, and only from that moment will the reform will be considered completed.”
There is no decentralization in the health sector. Ursula von der Leyen’s boss was considering disbursing the funds on December 6th.
“Since then, many municipalities have signed contracts, only last week they were joined by the mayor of Porto, who was initially one of the main opponents of this decentralization process. I can get it [o que falta]”, concluded the leader of the socialist executive branch.
Portugal is due to receive around €3,400 million under the third and fourth PRR requests, but will only be able to receive the full amount when all the reforms agreed with Brussels are implemented.
With recent changes to account for high inflation and the effects of war, the Portuguese PRR now amounts to €22.2 billion in grants and loans and covers 44 reforms and 117 investments.
So far, with 17% implementation, Portugal has already received 4.07 billion euros in grants and 1.07 billion in loans.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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