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The National Infrastructure Investment Program (PNI 2030) represents a total investment of 43,000 million euros, double the initial version of this program known more than a year ago. More than half are for rail, transport and mobility. Energy, Environment and Irrigation are other areas covered. The prime minister says that in this area there have been “Much passion, but great inconsistency in action”, calling for a “broad public and political debate to ensure that within ten years we will not have a cover page announcing a job that was announced ten years ago and is simply announced: done“.
And it is that this Thursday there was a composition on social networks that joined the cover of Public ten years ago, with today’s, both reporting on the progress of the TGV. Costa says he does not want history to repeat itself now and for the project to remain in the drawer again.
Public cover on July 6, 1999.
Public cover on October 22, 2020.
In the presentation made this Thursday at the National Civil Engineering Laboratory, António Costa (who was surrounded by five ministers plus one at a distance) and explained that 28% of the Plan is “financed with funds from the State Budget in different years until 2030 ”and will“ benefit from the reduction in annual APP costs ”. Another 12,000 million euros result from the Multiannual Financial Quadto in the cycle that runs until 2021-27, 33,000 million will come from the Recovery and Resilience Plan and 14,200 million from private investment through road and maritime concessions, Costa explained.
The prime minister expects to be “only a few weeks away from the approval of the Multiannual Financial Framework and the PRR” by Brussels and highlights the importance of the country having a “clear investment cycle for the next decade.” And he explains that the great weight in infrastructure investment is essential: “Nobody has illusions that we will develop only with more and better agri-food production or with more industry, without investing in infrastructure ”.
And leave one appeal to the national construction industry, “One of those who suffered the most from the previous crisis”, for “mobilizing for this new investment cycle”, also appealing, “without any protectionist logic, that the The public investment effort is not outsourced to international companies.”Of these works that are planned.
The focus on infrastructure made him the minister of the area, Pedro Nuno Santos, to open the session, starting by highlighting the most emblematic projects of the railway, even because of their size.
Pedro Nuno Santos assumed that a new high-speed connection between Lisbon and Porto, “It is an expensive line, very expensive (4,500 million euros), despite a contribution that may be important for our country”. Hence the option to start in phases in the North. Recalling the privileged connections with Galicia, the counselor explained the justification of the new line to Vigo, also carried out in a staggered manner. These are the top two priorities for new lines: Lisbon Porto and Porto / Vigo.
For the minister, the priority should have always been the approximation of the two metropolitan areas because a connection between Porto and Lisbon also helps to unite three large cities: Leiria -which is 4 hours by train from Lisbon- and that can go 35 minutes, Coimbra and Aveiro. “It’s not just about reducing travel time” between the two largest cities. It is a great revolution, said the minister.
In urban mobility and also in the railway field, Pedro Nuno Santos also referred to the conclusion of the quadruplication of the line between Roma / Areeiro and Braço de Prata, on the belt line, which will also quadruple the supply capacity of the Sintra line, the suburban axis that has more pressure on the demand side. In the audience, the mayor of Lisbon heard him, Fernando Medina.
Pedro Nuno Santos’ presentation began with a “self-criticism”, one more criticism of governments and decision makers in the last 20 years, for lost time. “In 1999 we came up with the best solution to unite the main cities of our country and Spain. Unfortunately, we are targeting the big boys and we have nothing. We shoot lines everywhere and in 2020 we have no lines to show“.
In terms of lighter infrastructure, with a focus on urban mobility with less impact on the climate, said the Minister of the Environment, Matos Fernandes, who is in isolation so he entered via videoconference. The projection of public investment Only for the Lisbon and Porto subways it amounts to 2 billion euros, Announced. The vast majority of this financial endowment will go to Porto, more specifically 1,100 million euros to extend the metro line to Vila Nova de Gaia, for example. 719 million euros have been allocated to the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, for the expansion of the Red Line and also interventions on the Yellow Line.
This investment appears in the Environment and Climate Action chapter, where the minister stated, during his presentation, that “85% of the investments we are talking about have a positive and direct action in decarbonization and in the fight against climate change”. In total, the planned investment package amounts to 26,000 million euros.
Before him, Pedro Nuno Santos had already taken the opportunity to warn of the need to prevent the stop and go process that has marked the execution of large infrastructure works in Portugal when they change government, but sometimes when they change ministers within the same Government . . A reference that, in the end, was also made by the Prime Minister who guarantees that his first Government “continued what was underway”. And he also spoke of the need for political commitment, which his minister had also wished could be taller than a legislature at least for big projects. Highlighting the public discussion and the incorporation of various contributions and criticisms (including the opinion of the Higher Council of Public Works whose president Natércia Cabral was the first to speak in this session.
For the minister, this path provides more guarantees that the problems of the past cease to exist, creating conditions for parties, ministers and governments to commit to a consensual program.
If implemented, the 10-year € 43 billion plan will involve an investment of four billion euros per yearThe. Rail and heavy public transport (meters) account for more than half of the amount planned in the National Infrastructure Investment Program (PNI 2030) and are the main factor that explains the almost doubling of the infrastructure program announced a year ago and that it anticipated an investment of almost 22 billion euros.
This is the second plan presented by the Prime Minister in a week, after the resilience plan to approve the “European bazooka” and there are several common projects, but now they appear more detailed, with investment values and a description of what to try to do.
A rail and transport absorb the largest share with € 21.66 billion of program investments, half of which for rail. The energy sector is the second with the most funds planned, of 13,000 million euros, in projects closely linked to the networks and where private participation is the main source of financing, with more than 90%. This is an exception in the program, since most of the investments, almost 60%, will be financed with public funds, a percentage that includes community funds.
The environment comes with a package of 7,418 million euros, in which the two billion euros planned for the urban water cycle stand out, with various projects ranging from the economy and circulation and sanitation to the provision of infrastructure for reduce high water losses from the current network.
Agriculture with an investment of 750 million euros to strengthen irrigation systems is the fourth major area of this program, maintaining the value that is recorded in the initial PNI.
