Brussels, Feb. 12, 2021 (Lusa) - Portugal's prime minister, António Costa, said in Brussels on Friday that the government would put the national plan for recovery and resilience out to pubçlic hearing on Monday. He hopes to deliver the final version to the European Commission "within three weeks".

The announcement came during a press conference in the European Parliament, on the signing of the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism regulation, a pillar of the EU recovery package to overcome the Covid-19 crisis, which opens the door for member states to start formally submitting their national plans for accessing funds to Brussels later this month.

"We have been working very intensively with the Commission since October and we are in a position to put our final draft plan to a public hearing in Portugal next Monday," Costa announced. Portugal is chairing the presidency of the Council of the EU in the first half of 2021. The regulation was signed at a ceremony also attended by the presidents of the Parliament, David Sassoli, and the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.

Costa said that he would now "proceed to hear the autonomous regions, the municipalities, the social partners and civil society because this is obviously a plan that has to be a participatory plan at a national level".

"We did this in the first draft, we do this now in the final version. We will put the draft plan to public discussion for a fortnight and therefore I hope that in three weeks we can deliver the final version of our plan to the Commission," he said.

Costa also said he expected the final negotiations with the EU executive led by Von der Leyen to be swift, because "there is great alignment between the specific recommendations of the Commission" and the government's programme "and a broad national consensus on the priorities.

"I do not foresee any particular difficulties in the final negotiation process with the Commission", he concluded.

The 27 member states to the European Commission can formally deliver their national recovery and resilience plans from the moment the regulation of the Mechanism - approved this week by the European Parliament and adopted on Thursday by the Council - is published in the official journal of the EU, which is scheduled for 18 February.

The plans must be negotiated between each member state and the Commission and subsequently validated by the Council, a task that will fall to the Portuguese presidency, as the aim is to approve the plans in the current semester. Today Costa said he hoped that some plans will have been approved by the end of April.

So far, 19 member states have submitted their draft national recovery and resilience plans to the European Commission, with Portugal being one of the first to do so, on 15 October. It defined the creation of social responses as priorities, with a focus on the country's health service and housing, and the promotion of employment through more investment and skills.

Backed by €672.5 billion in grants and loans, the Recovery and Resilience Facility is the main element of the recovery package agreed in 2020 by the EU to address the social and economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the 'NextGenerationEU', with a total allocation of €750 billion, between grants and loans.

Combining the Multiannual Financial Framework for 2021-2027 of €1.074 trillion and the Recovery Fund of €750 billion, the EU has a 'bazooka' of €1.8 trillion to address the crisis caused by Covid-19, with Portugal to get about €45 billion - €30 billion euros from the EU budget for the next seven years, plus €15.3 billion in grants from the Recovery Fund, and there is still the possibility for the country to borrow if desired.

At the beginning of today's press conference, Costa started by welcoming the fact that the EU now has two powerful instruments to overcome the Covid-19 crisis, a vaccine and a vitamin.

"From now on we have these two instruments. We have a vaccine to save lives and we have a vitamin for economic recovery", he said.

ACC/ADB // ADB.

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