State of play with the RRP

Subject: State of play with the RRP

After being given the green light by the Commission on 16 June 2021, Portugal’s recovery and resilience plan (RRP) is now in operation, making EUR 16.6 billion in loans and grants available for investment. The Commission has already transferred the first tranche, and around 7% of investments have been approved and 3% of the total sum is already in the hands of beneficiaries.

Portugal has a chronic public investment gap which, in percentage terms, is just over half the EU average. This has repercussions for all economic sectors, particularly, in the current climate, agri-food production, energy, transport and housing. It is therefore imperative that the RRP funds are made available as soon as possible.

I would like to know:

1. Is the Portuguese State involved in financing any of the investments that the Commission has approved so far, bringing another dimension to the projects, or are these direct investments, 100% financed by the Recovery and Resilience Facility?

2. Which of the 7% of investments already contracted relate to projects in the areas mentioned?

Answer given by Mr Gentiloni on behalf of the European Commission

(25 July 2022)

The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) is a performance-based instrument supporting reforms and investments by the Member States.

Under the RRF, payments are made upon the satisfactory fulfilment of milestones and targets reflecting the implementation of these measures, whereas estimated costs are only taken into account ex ante during the assessment of the recovery and resilience plans (RRPs). RRF payments from the Commission are always made to the Member State, not individual authorities or recipients.

Depending on the measure, the RRF can support the full implementation of a measure, or parts of it, in combination with national or other EU funding. Complementarities and synergies with other funding were also part of the assessment criteria for the RRPs. In fact, the RRF is one of several of the financing instruments used to deliver Portugal’s long term policy strategies.

The Portuguese plan contains a wide range of measures related to the mentioned sectors, and these will be implemented throughout the RRF timeline.

The RRF is a performance-based instrument, which means that payments are conditional on the achievement of milestones and targets set in the Council Implementing Decision (1).

The milestones and targets underlying the first payment request can be found in Section 2 of the annex to the Council Implementing Decision.

⋅1∙ Council Implementing Decision of 13 July 2021 on the approval of the assessment of the recovery and resilience plan for Portugal, ST 10149/21+ADD 1 REV 1, not

yet published.