Portugal 2030 partnership agreement envisages 23 billion euros in structural funds Portuguese Minister of Planning noted five strategic main goals in this partnership agreement

The Portuguese Minister of Planning Nelson de Souza claimed that the Portugal 2030 partnership agreement envisages 23 billion euros in structural funds.

While presenting the partnership agreement in Lisbon, the Minister noted that Portugal has at its disposal a total of 51.547 billion euros among the Portugal 2030 allocations, 14.644 billion from the Recovery and Resilience Facility, 9.769 billion from the Common Agricultural Policy, and 2.139 billion euros from the REACT initiative under way.

Nelson de Souza described that the 23 billion euros from the Portugal 2030 partnership agreement will be distributed between the ERDF- European Regional Development Fund (11.5 billion euros), the ESF+ - European Social Fund Plus (7.5 billion euros), the Cohesion Fund (3.4 billion euros), the Just Transition Fund (200 million euros), and the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (400 million euros).

The Minister highlighted that the Just Transition Fund "is associated with the goal of mitigating the effects of the climate transition". "The fund is relatively smaller when compared to the others and in total has little more than two dozen billion euros for the entire European Union and the distribution criteria have more to do with issues relating to the climate transition effects, namely the ones from using coal as a primary source of energy".

Nelson de Souza also highlighted five strategic goals of this partnership agreement:

- A smarter Europe, with a focus on innovation, digitalization, competitiveness of companies, skills for intelligent specialization, industrial transition and entrepreneurship

- A greener Europe that implements the Paris Agreement and invests in energy transition, renewables and the fight against climate change

- A more connected Europe, with strategic transportation networks, more sustained mobility and with greater investment in rail transport

- A more social Europe, based on the European Pillar of Social Rights, qualifying workers, the fight for equality and protecting the most vulnerable

- A Europe that is closer to its citizens, with integrated territory and inclusion approaches, with the goal of combining instruments and resources and funding in a more adjusted way, and to foster partnerships and strategies that bring together instruments of different kinds within a planning logic that may correspond more directly to the territorial convergence and cohesion aims.