Municipalities submitted 25 projects for work in schools under the PDP

The Minister for Territorial Unity said this Wednesday that municipalities have so far submitted 25 applications for notification under the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) of work projects in schools in need of intervention, representing an investment of 100 million euros. .

Ana Abruñosa said that these nominations for school notification by municipalities in the first, second and third cycles of the education decentralization process will be the first to be funded with funds from the PDP due by 2026.

The minister noted that the announcements were open to all regions through an extraordinary proactive mechanism “which stimulated the municipalities to make architectural and implementation projects and then submit them and start analyzing.”

The minister noted that the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities (ANMP) had also submitted to the government a list of schools that could benefit from the PRR.

“I want to warn about the need to develop implementation projects. The execution of works, as you know, implies the existence of execution projects in advance, important, even so that we can determine with some rigor the need for investment and what value government support is. At every opportunity – and this time – I appeal to the mayors not to waste time,” he said.

Ana Abruñosa said that a proposal drawn up by the ministries of cohesion, finance and education was formally presented to the ANMP for the signing between the government and this association of a program for the construction, rehabilitation and rehabilitation of schools, which are identified as requiring priority intervention. , as part of the decentralization of powers to municipalities in the field of education.

The minister explained that the school infrastructure requiring intervention had been identified, but it was agreed with the ANMP that if any school in need of intervention was not on the existing list, “it can and should be maintained, therefore not a closed list.”

Ana Abruñosa stressed that the school rehabilitation and construction program will be funded 100%, first with 450 million euros from the PRR, then about 200 million from the Portugal 2030 regional programs, and if this is not enough, all other works will be supported. Taking a loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB).

“It will be a loan for the government, but it will be a non-repayable fund for the municipalities. Therefore, school funding includes several sources of funding. The fact that the government resorts to loans [junto do] The EIB does not transfer any debts to the municipalities as the repayment of these loans is 100% guaranteed by the government,” he said.