Lisbon, April 30, 2026 (Lusa) – The National Monitoring Commission of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (CNA-RRP) acknowledged on Thursday that it has "serious doubts" that some problems will be corrected in the four months remaining before the deadline.
"In some cases, I have serious doubts," CNA-RRP President Pedro Dominguinhos told journalists following the presentation of the commission's new report.
The CNA-RRP said in its report that constraints on the plan's execution, such as decision-making delays and cash flow pressure on final beneficiaries, have persisted since 2023. Recommendations made in 2023 regarding decision-making speed, platform functionality, administrative simplification, team reinforcement, and the need for evaluation were reiterated over the following two years.
In 2026, these are "broadly confirmed", shifting from potential risks to "effective constraints" in execution.
Key issues include accumulated delays in decision-making processes and cash flow pressure on final beneficiaries, "resulting from delays in the analysis and payment of refunds." Structural limitations of management platforms and a dissociation between formal compliance and the actual functioning of investments stand out.
Dominguinhos said on Thursday that it is "fundamental" to accelerate payment requests, for example, in energy and affordable housing. He said that some entities have hired companies to analyse these requests.
"For entities to request final balance payments, they must pay all invoices. If they lack liquidity, this can create problems," he said, appealing to the government and plan beneficiaries to speed up the pace of payments.
He also said that more payment requests are recorded in the plan's final phase as work approaches completion.
Another aspect he considered critical, "despite all appeals", concerns the coordination between entities. He gave the example of a student residence in Oliveira do Hospital, where it took seven months to run an electric cable across a street. He insisted that "thousands of works" would be underway between July and August.
Consequently, he proposed creating a 'task force' among the various entities to focus "all energy" on the four months remaining until the end of the plan's execution.
The RRP aims to implement reforms and investments to restore economic growth. In addition to repairing damage caused by Covid-19, the plan intends to support investment and generate employment.
PE/RYOL // ADB.
Lusa
