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  • 17-02-2021 13:59

EU/Presidency: Madeira demands another €100M for port works


Funchal, Portugal, Feb. 17, 2021 (Lusa) - The Portuguese island of Madeira claims an additional €100 million for works in ports, under the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP), which provides €561 million for the region, the president of the Regional Government said on Wednesday.

"There is an issue that we will work on, which is the situation of the ports," said Miguel Albuquerque, on the sidelines of a visit to the swimming pools at the Nazaré Sports Complex in Funchal, where redevelopment works worth €600,000 have been carried out.

Albuquerque said that, in general, the Recovery and Resilience Plan meets the "expectations" of the autonomous region, but stressed that the government wants another €100 million for projects to improve the archipelago's ports.

"We will insist," he said, indicating that port infrastructure improvement is "fundamental and structuring" for the regional economy.

The draft version of the Recovery and Resilience Plan, to access post-crisis EU funds from Covid-19, provides 36 reforms and 77 investments in the social, climate and digitalisation areas, totalling €13.9 billion in grants, and has been in public consultation since Tuesday.

After a draft presented to the European Commission last October and a process of talks with Brussels, the version of the RRP defines three "structuring dimensions" - resilience, climate transition and digital transition.

The Autonomous Region of Madeira should receive €561 million in the next six years for projects in the areas of housing (€136 million), the expansion of the network of establishments for the elderly and support structures for the homeless (€83 million), water supply and irrigation systems (€70 million) and digital networks (€78 million).

"We will also analyse the access of the region and companies in the region to a set of national [support] lines," said Miguel Albuquerque.

DC/ADB // ADB.

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