Lisbon, Feb. 2, 2021 (Lusa) - Portugal's prime minister on Tuesday today cited "the example" of Portugal, which has already completed its national ratification process of the European decision to increase own resources, to ask the other Member States to "hurry" in completing this step.

Portugal has today completed the ratification process of the European Union's own resources decision, an essential step towards financing the European Recovery Fund", António Costa wrote on his personal Twitter account.

In the same message, the prime minister said that Portugal, as the country currently chairing the presidency of the Council of the European Union, hopes that its "example will inspire those Member States that have not yet done so".

"It is urgent to set national recovery plans in motion," Costa said.

Today, the president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, ratified the increase in the European Union's own resources and congratulated Portugal as one of the first member states to do so, stressing the importance of this decision.

DE Sousa's ratification was made public through a note on his official website, after the Portuguese parliament approved this European decision on Friday, without any votes against, through a draft resolution presented by the government.

In the same note, De Sousa stressed "the importance of this amendment to the decision on the European Union's own resources", which will allow the European Commission to raise financing on the markets, with the guarantee of the Community budget and, therefore, in solidarity with all the Member States, to be able to implement the Recovery and Resilience Plan, which is essential for the implementation of financial aid to help us emerge from the social and economic crisis that Covid-19 has caused".

The increase in the European Union's own resources is an essential step if the European Commission is to finance the €750 billion of the so-called "bazooka" of European support to deal with the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The European decision was approved in the parliament last Friday with votes in favour of the Socialists, Social-Democrats and the People-Animal-Nature party and abstentions from the other benches.

The ratification of the decision on new own resources by all the parliaments of the 27 Member States is indispensable for the European Commission to go to the markets to finance the "Next Generation EU" recovery fund.

PMF/ADB // ADB.

Lusa