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The European Commission announced that Portugal will receive 37.5 million euros in advances, through the European Union solidarity fund, to help address “the covid-19 outbreak and its effects.”
In a press release, the European Commission said that, “following the request for help to deal with the covid-19 outbreak and its effects,” it will deliver 37.5 million euros to Portugal in “advances”.
“This is an advance, requested by the Portuguese government, and the evaluation of the submitted application is pending, without anticipating the final amount” planned for Portugal, underlines the community executive, in a note to Lusa.
The announcement comes after, in June, Portugal submitted a request to the European solidarity fund to the community executive to mitigate the economic effects caused by the covid-19 pandemic.
In a statement published at the time, the Government referred to having submitted a request for “support for eligible expenses amounting to 3,500 million euros.”
The request included State expenses related to “medical equipment and devices, laboratory tests, personal protective equipment, reinforcement of the resources of the National Health Service and reinforcement of the Continuous Care network,” the statement emphasized.
In addition to Portugal, Germany, Ireland, Greece, Spain, Croatia and Hungary also used the solidarity fund for the same reasons, and the Commission announced this Friday that it allocated a total of 132.7 million euros to the seven countries.
The EU executive is now carrying out the evaluation of the applications submitted by the Member States and, only when that evaluation is complete, “will a proposal be made with the final values”.
Quoted in the press release, the Portuguese commissioner, Elisa Ferreira -with the portfolio of Cohesion and Reforms-, affirmed that the funds announced today are “another important proof of what the solidarity of the EU means, the heart of the European project.”
It is now up to the European Parliament (EP) and the European Council to approve the announced funds so that financial aid can be released.
Created in 2002, the EU Solidarity Fund is normally mobilized for countries affected by natural disasters. However, due to the exceptional situation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, it has since been expanded to deal with health emergencies.
In April, Portugal received 8.2 million euros through this mechanism, after the damage caused by Hurricane Lorenzo in the autonomous region of the Azores.
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