Lisbon, Nov. 25, 2025 (Lusa) - The president of Portugal warned on Tuesday of a series of "legal and administrative obstacles" that are delaying the arrival of RRP funds to the final beneficiaries "too slow," a problem he considered dramatic given the proximity of the implementation deadline.
In his opening speech at the Congress commemorating the 50th anniversary of CAP - Confederation of Portuguese Farmers in Lisbon, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa highlighted the current government's concern and "constant battle" in the area of European funds, emphasising the "very appreciable pace of disbursements for the achievement of significant goals and milestones", and then calling for these advances to materialise with the money reaching the final beneficiaries.
"May this translate into the funds reaching the final beneficiaries. State reform, administrative bureaucracy reform, and the growing number of legal and administrative obstacles are slowing the flow of funds to final beneficiaries. This is a dramatic problem when we are one year and one month away from what is the normal term, the normal use, of the RRP funds," he warned.
The head of state said that although "agriculture is very vocal in this area", this is a battle for everyone, because "it is an urgent measure" and more than €9 billion has been paid out when there is "more than double" that amount available from the Recovery and Resilience Plan.
"It would not be dramatic if there were no need to change laws and administrative behaviour. Laws and administrative procedures must be changed. It would not be dramatic if the years 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 had not already passed. Almost four years of the overall deadline have been considered. But that is a concern for the Government," he said.
The president also stressed that the Portuguese people's electoral choice is currently "closer to the principles and points of view that the CAP has always defended", so it would be "absurd" if there were no convergence and capacity to meet farmers' expectations and concerns.
In the same speech, he also assured that he "witnessed" that the Prime Minister and the Government "are fully aware of the difficulty of the ongoing discussions at European institutional level regarding future budgetary frameworks" and that they know how difficult it is to have a "medium and long-term vision" at a time of "dilution of leadership" and "dispersion of objectives".
Marcelo addressed the role of Portuguese farmers in convincing politicians, whom he portrayed as increasingly metropolitan and concentrated, that "there is more to Portugal than that", giving as examples the periods of forest fires and the response to the separation, in the organisation of state management, of agriculture and forestry.
"That was a contradiction. It was separating a reality that constitutes a universe, separating in homage to theoretical schemes that did not correspond to reality," he argued.
In this speech, he also praised the role of the CAP in defending farmers and the rural world, as well as the confederation's ability to understand the importance of "winning battles and wars" in the European Union.
The head of state praised the way in which this confederation has kept pace with changes in the world, such as the "shift of the centre of Europe further east" or changes in global powers, for example, with the end of the Soviet Union or the rise of China.
Marcelo took the opportunity to lament the subjection of countries to "conflicts that should not exist" and developments that lead to "always fearing worse outcomes than developments" in the world, stressing that "society needs stable values".
"Knowing what you can count on. Is it an ally or not an ally? Or is it a semi-ally? Can an ally be an ally in some things and an impartial arbiter in others? Or even an arbiter who tends to be less of an ally in others? And living with these realities is a disturbing circumstance in today's world," he said.
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