 I'll start in Portuguese and then I will speak in Portuguese, but again I'd like to thank you because this is a very important moment, it's an EPP meeting and I know, inspired the fact of many of you coming to live in, since I'm the mayor, I'd like to thank Zim and Wilfrid Lange, the head of the PSD delegation in Brussels, Nunmel, the chair of CDES, the president of CDC and thank all our friends Isabella Ayu was from Madrid and we signed an agreement with and the two mayors of Athens and Warsaw, two important examples of EPP showing our strength and how important cities are in Europe. First a little bit about the story of my election because I think it's a story that is very interesting for the EPP, very interesting for the future and as I told you yesterday I think that I won this election for two reasons, the first because I really acted as an EPP member, listening to people, working with people and really making politics in a different way and that is extremely important in these days where people don't believe anymore in politics and they don't believe anymore in politicians so there's an opportunity for us as a party to make that difference, to make that difference and make the difference to be the ones that make politics in a different way and so making politics in a different way is really listening to people and then get people to be with us and so in the town hall of Lisbon we created something very different which we call the citizens assembly and the citizens assembly is to get the citizens to come and work with us instead of doing the pure public consultation one of my first promises was really to get people to come and work with us so we do these meetings where we get people randomly from the city they come and they work on solutions they work on solutions that then they work with the people of the municipality to make it happen and that changes everything and I think that's one of the reasons that really we won the elections it was that one of the main reasons to make it different for people the second reason I think that people today understand that to be a mayor you have to be a person that links the cities to Europe and so the mayors of the past or the I would say the typical mayors today they should adapt to something that before they would do a link in between the local town hall and the country and today they need to do it with Europe and I think that people understood that better than politicians and better than prime ministers and better than countries and so I think that link between the cities in Europe it's the link that I wanted today to talk about because of the next generation Europe program I think that cities today are really the translators of European policies to citizens and when I say that cities are the translators it's because cities are the only platform that can translate your language into the language of the people and when in Europe you as parliamentarians decide that you want to have carbon neutral cities that for people locally doesn't mean anything because they don't even understand what you're talking about they need the translation of that carbon neutral cities concept into very simple concepts and concrete actions at the city level and that's what mayors do is to basically do that translation so when I became a mayor the translation of that that we the socialists was just about keeping the same discussions for me was really to change it to very concrete actions so the first action was to make public transportation free for the young and the elderly and by making public transportation free for the young and the elderly we were able to go and explain people what does it mean to have less carbon in our skies is to have public transportation for free and today 70,000 people have public transportation for free in Lisbon then I translated that in the fact that if you want to stop having floods in Lisbon you have also to have concrete measures to adapt Lisbon to the climate change and we started the major works that Lisbon has never seen before which are two tunnels that will get the water from the top of the hills to the river so you don't get floods in the city this is adaptation and we have to adapt cities in a way that people say yes if I have these tunnels if I have these collectors then I don't have floods anymore in my town and then you talk to people and they say oh okay now I understand climate change now I understand what climate change is about climate change is about doing these things that actually make that my life is easier and that's a big difference with the socialists is that the way we tackle climate change is about making people's lives easier and not the other way around and so when we go on these narrative that is not a narrative is the fact of explaining very easily to people what these discussions are about we can talk also in Europe about a health union but if we talk about a health union what does it mean for the people on the ground we translate that in Lisbon in different actions in having a free health plan for the Lisbon people so people in Lisbon can have access to a doctor and today we have 7,000 people in Lisbon that can have access to a doctor which before was not possible because they were waiting for months and months to have access to a public doctor and so translating these actions I think that's what the EPP can do and that's what mayors can do and then people understand what you do you know we have and I was the commissioner for innovation and science I spent five years dealing with universities with startups but in my job I was rarely talking to mayors I confess myself as a commissioner for innovation I rarely talk to mayors I talk to Ricardo Riu that is there the great mayor of Braga and Ricardo we had these conversations because he is also a mayor in Portugal that makes this link to Europe in a different way but I think is also your effort as European parliamentarians as people that work for the good of Europe to do these translations and doing these translations in actions is very difficult because you have to put dates you have to be able to do concrete things and you have to do it in a way that people feel it so when I try to translate the idea of innovation to Lisbon I came on to the ground saying I'm gonna create this unicorn factory and people called me crazy how I on hell is gonna create this unicorn factory what is a unicorn factory and I said I'm gonna transform Lisbon in a capital of innovation to get people from other places to come to Lisbon I want the big companies of the future to come to Lisbon not the big companies of today because the big companies of today they are big so they are where they are but I know that the big companies of the future if I settle them in Lisbon then I will have a different economy so we started that people made fun of it and then suddenly one year later we got 11 unicorn companies that have settled their business in Lisbon two from the US one from Israel from India I was just yesterday sitting with another unicorn that has created more than 50 jobs as they started 50 jobs in Lisbon others have created 100 150 jobs all in Lisbon and in one year you know how many unicorns you have in Portugal all together seven we attracted to Lisbon 11 in one year and so those actions are the actions that really can make a difference but if you want to make that difference you need the help of Europe and I think that the next generation Europe program was probably the best invention that you've had in the European Parliament in the European Commission and with the Council and the European next generation program can really help us on this translation that's for me the tool that should be the tool that would help us but unfortunately what happened in a country like Portugal is that only 10% of that next generation Europe came to the cities only 10% and the way that the government designed this program was not to help the private sector of course we need help in the in the public sector but the balance was totally unbalanced so we designed the program that should have been focused on cities because the cities are these platforms of change but no what the government did was basically to do a platform to basically allocate that money to only the public sector or I think the big majority of the money is going to the public sector and not to the right places so let me tell you as a friend and as one of yours what I think are the big difficulties today for us as mayors and I'm sure that Ricardo will then tag along with my comments first I know that the EPP fought a lot for these next generation Europe package to be longer to go to 2027 that didn't happen so we have an impossible deadline so that impossible deadline as an effect on choices that is absolutely ridiculous you have 2026 so you know that you have to do everything before 2026 so what do you do do you do new projects or you try to grab the projects that already exist to put the money and if you want new projects you really have you really have to change the deadline so my ask to you is that we can change this deadline at least to 2028 and I know that you've asked for 2027 as a party but today it's impossible it's impossible to do all these projects we have big projects in Lisbon one specifically which will be the unicorn factory of the sea the oceans that I cannot get done if you don't change the deadline so that's my first ask to you the second point is that and I don't know if it's the Portuguese government or the European decision is about incentives if the incentives for next generation year are that for every months of delay that I have in a project I have to pay over a million euros a fees to the government I mean that's wrong if by any chance I cannot finalize my project by the deadline I have to get all the money back that you've sent me it doesn't work if I am as I am still waiting for more than a year for get reimbursements it doesn't work and so we have to be very careful because if the incentives are negative then people will not go along and so I have a big team in my town hall just dealing with the next generation Europe but they feel afraid and when you have these European programs and then people feel afraid of not being able to do it what do you think that the public servant does and rightly so it just says okay I'm not gonna go ahead so we have really to review the way that we have designed these incentives and finally the third point that I wanted to get across today to you about next generation Europe is the one that I think is central to everything being a European like I am always defending Europe I think Europe should not be a European project that we go on just checking lists to have all the checklist right to have the project what do I mean by that I think that one should look at the purpose of projects not only if the project checks the list of environment if checks the list of digital if checks the list of everything that we know that is what Europeans want and I am that European I want my projects to be sustainable I want my projects to be digital but I want my projects to have a purpose and my projects to get us to have results and today sometimes we feel and I feel in my teams that when I'm applying to these projects I'm not making my people think what's the purpose of the project but they saying oh does it check the list what they want how they want us to say these they want us to say that they want us to apply and have these wording no but that's not the point the point is that is this project will be transformational is this project transform it be a project that will transform the the Portuguese economy that's the point you know and and I think that somehow in the middle of all the red tape and bureaucracy we lost track of that so take these advice as a advice of a friend but more than anything I want to thank Europe and I want to thank Europe from the bottom of my heart and I'm gonna do it in Portuguese now to end my speech because I think is extremely important for the Portuguese media and for my Portuguese friends no she'll open up without Europe we are nothing what we live what we've been experienced what we experienced during the pandemic leads us to conclude that we need to thank Europe every single day and I thank Europe for being able to construct what will be the two largest tunnels in Lisbon in Europe to prevent flooding in Lisbon we're doing it with Europe's money we are working with Europe every single day and if it wasn't Europe we wouldn't be able to if it was in Europe and what was the greatest vaccine center in Lisbon to vaccinate people during the pandemic wouldn't have existed it wouldn't have happened and that's why we need to thank Europe thank Europe and today to be convinced of Europe's role in our lives as mayor of Lisbon I want to be the one taking care of people but that establishes that essential link tie between our cities in Europe our cities will be stronger Europe will be stronger long live Europe long live Lisbon and thank you very much good morning everyone good morning I first of all I like to greet the mayor of Lisbon and also like to welcome all our local authorities the Euro members and also greet Siegfried and Morrison Siegfried Morrison that negotiated this mechanism leading to our recovery and resilience plan and also again I would like to welcome all of those taking part in this initiative the popular party has been a solution has been in the genesis and also in the negotiation that is both of the funds and also of this historic program I don't know if it's the only one in our history but this is a historic program unprecedented one and it's for the first time that the European Union goes to the market finances itself so afterwards to give million thousand millions of money to the member states so that they can invest in their economies and I this has to go well if we want to repeat and this has to go well and I hope it doesn't repeat that this would be designed that our economies would have a type of pandemic but also it it brings an additional obligation that is there are many people that are aware of the fact that the depths of these plans recovery resilience will be paid that that will be made by 20 58 by the EU's budget and this will cost around 15 billion euros a year and this compels us to seek new revenue that does not penalize the European citizens but also prevents cuts in the future and that's why the good execution of this plan is an obligation and not to penalize our future generations and I said that the date the date of this step that is will be paid until 20 by 20 58 this is a historical opportunity and that we cannot undermine and its objective is to strengthen our economy to give more resilience to give it more resilient and also to modernize the member states and then the question where are the structural measures to really modernize Portugal where is the transformation that should accompany investments and then there is here a question that can be asked and it's not enough that is in terms of we have to define our national design where do we where do we want to stand in 2030 vocational training education exports in terms of our competence in education research fighting poverty and then all can contribute to that objective with our actions and our programs and it's unacceptable as I've mentioned earlier to lose sight of this opportunity and there is here's something that sends me that is some government and especially the Portuguese government also doesn't doesn't have that vision it does what it seeks its political survival uses these funds to to fund its ideology and its state it's unacceptable and not using these resources to create capitalization instruments for the company so that they can face the high-inch face a high interest rates or not supporting enough the families there's a storm of millions that is it's not only this plan which is growing 1.6 million years of what had been initially foreseen because we did not respond to the bandemic as we should and when seek feeds more sense negotiation we have more than 700 million we power you for the energy which was very important to know where these 1.6 million additional euros will go to how will they be invest the 700 million additional 700 millions I'm looking at two social partners that is Zeep and the mercies the IPSS and the mercies and I'm looking at two social partners that will be intervening later on I'm speaking about Zeep and the union of Portuguese mercies they know the needs that exist and as what has been referred instead of being just users we should be programmers of funds and it would be time to be fun programmers so as not to lose these opportunities and it's not difficult to use these resources for competitiveness for territorial cohesion for salary increase all of this is possible we have the money and it's unacceptable not to have a minimum of ambition with these enormous resources that the European Union has made available and that's why I demand a competent government a government that acts with transparency and that strengthens our country in these in different areas we every year we speak about fires force fires where are there resources for the force policy every year we're going to have to we're gonna have problems with water supply where are their projects to solve its efficiency interconnection of these system and I'm going to conclude by saying the following it's competitive sustainability but it's also it has to be territorial cohesion and this hasn't been included there cannot be just a single thought that there's basic sanitation base that in all of Portugal there isn't this great opportunity has to put us in at another level we need a government that could be able to articulate itself so as to articulate the funds so we have a minister for instance a minister and the cohesion policy we have plan when we have a minister of cohesion that only manages the regional programs and a minister of the economy that generates the C program with 380 million euros and everything has been everything then is set about the lack of organization that exists within the government our objective is to help all member states to do what we can for Portugal to use well these resources and also this seminar is initiative I truly welcome and thank you Zikrin Morrison good morning everyone and thank you very much for this event this morning on behalf of the EPP group in the European Parliament we are very delighted to be in Lisbon today to be here amongst friends to be here hosted by the two member parties of the EPP from Portugal to be here hosted by Jose Manuel Fernández the head of the Portuguese delegation in the EPP group by Nuno Mello co-president of the Portuguese delegation in the European Parliament and of course the president of CDSPP Paolo Rangel vice president of the EPP group I see with us also Alvaro Amaro Maria Garza Carvalho Lidia Pereira colleagues who represent Portugal in the EPP group in the European Parliament and who work every week to make sure that the voice of Portugal is heard to make sure that in all decisions which we make in the European Parliament on the budget on agriculture on fisheries on industry the decisions are good for Portugal and they take into account the needs of Portugal I would like to say a special word of appreciation to Carlos Mordas we came to Lisbon to show our support our appreciation for him and to learn from him because five years we had the chance in Europe to work together with him in his function as commissioner for research science science and innovation and we saw how he helped modernize the whole European Union to make it more innovative to make it more science-based and now we see how he is doing this concretely in Lisbon as mayor of Lisbon and I can say the people of Lisbon are lucky to have Carlos Mordas as mayor in this time I would like also to thank mayors and colleagues who came from all Europe to be with us here today Marco Marco Marcula the president of the Helsinki region Isabel Diaz Iuso the president of the Madrid community Rafa Traskowski the mayor of Warsaw Costas Bakoyan is the mayor of Athens they are all here because as EPP we want to build a network of mayors who are close to the people but who also work together at European level they learn from each other they see the best projects they bring them back home they support each other this is what the EPP stands for the topic of our meeting today is European funds and the truth is that there are now more European funds available than at any time before and European funds money from the traditional budget of the European Union and from next generation EU are a major source of investment in Portugal in Spain in many member states of the European Union next generation EU is the biggest package of economic support ever created by the European Union it is unique it is limited in time so this is why it is so essential that we spend these money well socialists only talk about spending money but for us for the EPP it is about spending it well it is about doing what helps people most it is about putting the money in those projects which generate more growth which generate more jobs which allow for stable and well paid jobs for for the people back home and this is also what we want to discuss about today we believe that in order to finance the right projects the voice of mayors the voice of regions has to be heard and we know that this was not heard enough by the Portuguese government here and we want to give mayors a voice because there is a lot of money time is short next generation EU the implementation of EU funds can be a success with the mayors because they know what is needed at local level they know what are the needs of the people what infrastructure project communities need which schools need support which hospitals need to be modernized this is why implementing European funds with the mayor is a guarantee that money is used where people need it and this is what the EPP stands for this is what we feel lacked when the was missing when the Portuguese government prepared the plan and this is why our message to the government of Portugal is involve the mayors in the implementation of the plan there was not enough involvement in the preparation of the plan but this can it's still not too late this can be recovered now involve mayors and we see in neighboring country Spain that this should also happen we also know from mayors in Spain that the Socialist government in Madrid is also not hearing them not listening to the projects and this is why we say to the government in Madrid like we say to the government in Lisbon work for the people take their projects into account European funds are money from the people of Europe for the people of Europe they are not money for governments to be to be administered in a central way but their money to be used where they are needed and we know from other EPP governed countries that the involvement of mayors can function we saw it in Greece where local leaders were heard by the government I saw it in my country Romania where the government decided together with the mayors which hospitals to modernize which hospitals to enlarge and it enlarges those hospitals which mayors said that they are the most the most urgent time is short we can only succeed with the with the mayors of course the more money there is the more we are obliged to be transparent this is what why what Carlos Mordas as mayor said we govern with the people they are involved in decisions they have a right to know where taxpayers money flow should also apply to your to European funds this will also be a topic for our discussion today how do we make sure that we use money in a transparent way that we use it to modernize our our our economy our public systems to make them more more resilient this will be the topic of our event today make sure that we spend it well that we spend it with local communities that we put money where it matters we know it can be done we know from Greece we know from Croatia we know from Romania it can be done we hope it will happen also in a way in which authorities here will work closer to the mayors closer to the citizens to do it we as EPP are ready to do this and thank you very much for joining us for this event today now before I go let me just invite up here to the panel the the first panel because we will have two panels today the title of the first panel will be exactly this involvement of local authorities in the design and implementation of the recovery plan lessons learned and let me invite on stage the moderator for this panel Jan Albrecht a vice chair of EPP group in the European Parliament from Poland is Isabel Benhumia a member of the European Parliament from Spain and vice president of the Committee on regional development in the European Parliament Rafal Tratskovsky the mayor of Poland the main the mayor of Warsaw and Poland would be much better off today if Rafal Tratskovsky would be the mayor of Poland or number one in Poland Antonio Sarajeva the president of the confederation of Portuguese business Ricardo Rio the mayor of Braga Manuel Lemus the president of the Union of Portuguese mercies and Dwight Norvo the mayor of Oliveira Dubai and I leave you with Jan Albrecht who takes the lead now thank you very much yes good morning everybody and I'm very glad that the secret made a mistake I'm from Poland so unfortunately there was very very close that Rafal Tratskovsky be the president of our country so it's never lost you know so let's let's hope the future because it was he really very good candidate I would like to because all the participants of the panel has been obviously Druze I don't have to introduce the panelist from Portugal this panel is quite especially constructed why because we are coming here as the mayor of Warsaw and members of the European Parliament and of course the I just want to inform you in non-officially that of course we in the parliament we are following the all the RRFs in member states so it's not that we are coming here not knowing I mean knowing nothing about the Portuguese RF we have a special center which is preparing the analysis of each RF so we have the in fact we are we are now informed what is the state of play but this this is not that we will try to discuss I mean we outside from outside of Portugal to to discuss your plan in detail it's like coming here and to control and monitor but let's start to think from different perspectives first perspective is okay what the our two speakers which will make the introduction or how they look at the situation which is which should be a model situation I mean it means how it should look like I mean the all the consultation of of different stakeholders mainly the local governments what is the situation that we would like to have as a very very demanding and very clear politically so that's why the first two speakers they will tell us from the from their perspective from their practice as the how this process of consultation should look like and of course not only because this before but also the participation of different stakeholders during the implementation during the implementation one the question is how it should be controlled is really controlled what we expect first speaker will be Isabel Benhumia which will speak about behalf of the of the work on inside the parliament she's the member of the regional development quality so just looking okay what are our expectations concerning the RRA especially that we have to in fact two different policies one is our RF the other one is cohesion policy our RF has completed different rules cohesion policy is different rules so RF is limited in time cohesion policy is much much longer the question is how we in the parliament how original development committee and the member from Spain is looking at this problem of our how it should look like at the beginning this is a history not in Poland in Poland we have we are still ahead of of implementing but how you would we as in the parliament we would like to see it just to just to finalize this introduction now we we practitioners because no I mean many of us we used to be the mayors of the cities me also I was the mayor of the city I know what it really means consultation and consultation very often can be it's everything is ready and we will send it to someone and say please you have two hours to respond if you don't respond it's because anyway it's consulted everything is ready this is not consultation this is not a consultation this is just sending something which is ready we would like to hear the what's what mayor Moeda said work together work together so first Isabelle and who may are from Spain from the regional development committee what is the expectation from your point of view from the parliament from regional development concerning our RF please the four years thank you very much Jan thank you very much mr. Moedas for this really good warm welcome to your beautiful city it's a pleasure to be in Lisbon in Portugal and thank you very much a Siegfried and Jose Manuel for organizing this very very important event which I hope that will continue around Europe to give voice to what I believe that they are the most important stakeholders in the success of the implementation of the recovery fund which which are the regions and the local and the local municipalities and I start by saying my and of course I want to say hello and to all my good friends from the Portuguese delegation of the EPP that we work together so hard in agriculture in taxation in many other fields and it's great to be with you here today I wanted to share with you three ideas first of all is the it has been said previously and I wanted to dive in a little bit on that which is the huge opportunity we have ahead of us we have a project that gives the European countries a unique opportunity of huge investment investment public investment that comes from the European debt as Jose Manuel said is the first time that Europe goes into the markets to fund such such a program and this program is only one opportunity and as we are among friends of the same family which is EPP this the success of this program is the success of EPP because it was led and it was designed by EPP Commission and we are the largest group of the European Parliament so we really need to make this opportunity a success and if we don't do that if we if there is not a success if the money is not well spent if the money is not put into the right projects if the right reforms are not put into place then at the end of the day EPP will be somehow pointed out are responsible for the failure of the RF and I really believe that we really need to acknowledge this secondly there is a situation among most of the member states and we've been denouncing this within the regional development committee in the European Parliament also within the economic affairs committee in the European Parliament that the member states pushed to have absolute control over the recovery fund they didn't allow to put in the regulation that it was mandatory to take into account the proposals of the local municipalities or the proposals of the regions they decided to have full control centralized control in a regional Europe in a Europe that is based on the regions I I can use this the example of Spain and especially we have here Isabelle Diaza-Yuzo president of the region of Spain were thanks to the independence that the region of Madrid have the citizens in Madrid have much more opportunities and right now living in Madrid gives you much more opportunities to find a job to start a company so how come when you design a program that it has happened in Spain you do not count you don't take into account the proposals that the mayor's that the president of the regions put into place and what is money sport important nobody is really paying attention to the the announcers that the commission is receiving from the regions the committee of the regions has had very very tough reports very tough reports saying the regions are not being heard and the commission is not reacting to this and I really would like to raise my voice to say to the commission you really need to put pressure on the member states to take into account to take into account what the regions and municipalities have to say and the third point that really struggles me and and and worries me a lot this is public money this is money that comes from the taxpayers the European taxpayers is money that we will have to pay back in 20 in 2053 it's money that right now we don't have clear data on how well spent how is it being spent right now we don't have European data on the implementation of the recovery fund there is no full transparency on how the money is being spent and this is something we cannot accept right now the responsibility on the implementation of the spending of the money relies in each of the member states some are being transparent which is good but others are not is the case of Spain right now we do not know where the money is we do not know if the money is being spent or not we don't know which projects right now are being funded with this money and we cannot allow this to happen within the European Union with the taxpayers money another concern right now most most of the projects that are being funded are public projects have nothing against good public projects but if we really want to create growth we will really want to create jobs if we really want to invest in the design of our resilient and a competitive economy we really need to make sure that this money goes into the private sector goes into the startups entrepreneurs the SMEs and also the large corporations and the final remark we've said this EPP constantly with Siegfried with Jose Manuel we've a struggle very much each time we have our hearings with the Commission is that we really need to also demand that we have a real audit on the impact that the reforms of the different member states have because there is a conditionality this money doesn't come just for free member states need to make the right reforms in place so that we can become more resilient which is the name of the of the of the project and if we really want to do that we really need to have a real in-depth analysis of the impact of the reforms that the member states are putting into place and we as EPP cannot allow that those reforms are not the reforms on the right path reforms for progress reforms that create more jobs reforms that help us be more competitive and why not talk about fiscal incentive why why not talk about creating a very attractive fiscal environment within the European Union which by the way it's allowed to include it in the different in the different programs so we have a huge opportunity we are talking about the largest amount of European public money that will be sent into the into the member states along with the cohesion funds so there is only one opportunity we really need to put pressure on on on the member states but also on the Commission and demand transparency the beneficiary in the spending demand real real projects that have impact cross border but also at the national level and the right reforms that gives the future generation who will be paying will be paying for the recovery fund a real chance so these are the things that we along with my colleagues are fighting within the European Parliament and we are constantly demanding for responsibility in the spending of the fund thank you very much this was a very good remark because you know the difference between the RF and cohesion is that there are many based on milestones so that's when milestones so the member states they they don't feel obliged to show what is inside the bind stones where there's any cohesion there are projects so we know when milestones what he's able to just explain it it's very difficult for us to understand what is what is going on so I think I would thank you very much now I'd like to float to the give the floor to Rafał Czaskowski by the way going to the speech of Mr. Mayor Moedasz we have some mayors which are very European so it means that someone like you Rafał came from European level from European Parliament to be the mayor here's one of the this mayors which are very European not only because he speaks languages including Portuguese but I hope that he will not speak Portuguese today and his speech because but but just information for the media so but this is a question of way of thinking I mean this is a different perspective I mean the way so I the big pleasure and honor I give to float to Rafał who is the mayor of Warsaw former member of European Parliament and you will see what it really means to make European mayor please thank you the invitation I like to thank the invitation address to thank my friend to be able to be able to talk about what's in store even though Poland as you know is not using the recovery money yet because of the fact that the government is breaking the rule of law even though we have quite a few quite a few things to to say about this and to share with you first of all because we focus on the rule of law and we focus on the money but you have to understand this that the recovery plan this is a plan for the modernization of Europe and modernization of Poland and people keep forgetting about it I mean we have been modernizing our countries for the past 30 years and now we need an additional push after COVID after the war in times of energy crisis and so on and so forth that's exactly what we need this is like a medicine that we need to keep on moving and to make Europe competitive and if you look at the recovery plans for some of our countries the agenda is there and by the way this is an agenda that includes the work of the regional governments and of the mayors because if you talk about the agenda this is innovation digitization green agenda even urban planning is there things like transportation things like affordable housing and so on and so forth all of those all of those priorities are there and let me tell you one thing you cannot do it without the regional local government you cannot do it without the cities that's why it is so absolutely crucial that this plan its implementation it's not centralized and that's what the government do and moreover they're politicizing the whole process and we all know the cohesion policy how many strings are attached to it so that the European institutions can actually watch the process in implementation whereas the recovery plan is totally centralized it was given to the governments to actually play with and that's why we need to have some control over what's going on and I mean when it comes to politicization politicization process as far as I know because of course you know the plan is not being implemented in Poland for obvious reasons there were quite a lot of tricks employed by the conservative government to actually make it impossible or at least very difficult for cities to use the money for example when it comes to buying low-emission buses you know the procurement is so small only for 20 or 30 or 40 buses as to make it almost impossible for the big cities to use it so we need the regional authorities to be consulted and it's not only in the preparation process because of course that's long gone but when it comes to evaluation and putting it all in practice that's why I think our role is so important because we are going to be involved in putting it in place but also because we really know how to do it because we have been spending money for the past European money for the past 20 or 25 years we have the the projects we have the know-how and on top of that we are so well connected thanks to the committee of the regions thanks to other institutions which help us network help us exchange our experiences so that we can make sure that what we do is actually going to be used it's going to be affordable it's going to be effective and that's why the role of the regional and local authorities is so absolutely crucial and I would end with one thing with one plea because I keep on fighting for it with the committee of the regions with your cities with a pact of free cities we all are saying one thing in those difficult times look at what's happening most of the responsibility for most of the challenges that are ahead of us are shifted to the local and regional authorities I'm not responsible for for dealing with pandemics I'm not responsible for dealing with wars and refugees I'm not responsible on paper for dealing with energy crisis yet I'm dealing with all of those things in Warsaw and I would submit to you that that's that's more effectively than the central government and if you want digital Europe if you want modern Europe if you want fights to fight global change changes and global warming seriously if you want to have good quality of air you need to do it with the cities you cannot keep us out of that that's why we are fighting for a small direct financing for the cities of course most of the money 95 percent will still go through national envelopes but we need to do that that's why the projects like 100 green cities are so important that's why we need to keep on pushing for such product projects include us and on recovery plan if you do not consult us if you don't take our views into consideration the money will not be used in the most effective way so this is in the interest of all of us to include to include regional and local authorities because if you want real modernization you got to do it with us and if you don't believe that come to Lisbon come to Warsaw come to the region of Madrid come to Braga look around and see how our cities have changed thanks to the European money but also thanks to the people who know how to do it so once again thank you very much we to Brigado and let's go on with the fascinating discussion yes it was a European voice from Poland and so but okay so this they are the perspective from outside of Portugal let's look on the situation in Portugal so we I'm here together with the secret and the issues manual we are the members of the special group which is monitoring the the plans in each European country so we are trying to follow the information what information we can get and of course the this information when I was preparing myself I read that the that in Portugal you have a functioning monitoring committee and I would like to ask among the other things it's Tonya Sarajeva president of configuration of Portuguese business what is the reality in Portugal I mean do you have this kind of strong participation of different stakeholders including business in this monitoring and implementation etc please the first year's second example does a manel finance following as a manel of an inch I will speak in Portuguese I've prepared 12 points since I only have three minutes the positive scenario we are experiencing a slowdown of the economic activity there's a clear deterioration and the company's feeling is not very positive the growth rate foreseen for the by the government for 2023 1.3% is based on a forecast of a greater dynamism of our investment however this is a risky assumption once the on the business investment will be impacted by an increase of uncertainty financing cost and also an increase of the difficulties related to supply the amount of material and equipment especially and I would like to add by the deterioration of our expectations the RF is quite important in relation to what is being felt more than half of the increase of the public investment for 2023 should be from its execution and it's also decisive as a stimulus for business investment and we could look back and criticize the basic options underlining the RF if I'm convinced that it does not translate the priority given to companies in the recovery process and transformation of the Portuguese economy and also we could criticize the lack of involvement of our social partners in its development the process has been and I should acknowledge is to has been improved and consultations have been more frequent so what is important now is to make sure that we invest duly and that we execute implement quickly because more than just announcing is to execute implement Portugal will have to implement execute more than 6 billion euros in European funds per year counting on the P in the RF of structural funds it only exists execute 3 billion euros we're gonna have to double the use and I hope correct use of the same funds we also have we we face a tremendous a challenge we can only execute these funds and if there is a strict collaboration between the private and public sector in total transparency and considering the companies as businesses as a partner for this common objective we have to think about the innovative form to invest these values where it's important and not just to insist on different processes that's why we strongly applauded the mobilizing agenda in terms of its real impact it is still early according to the last published numbers hiring 70% approvals as well payment 9% and now and only 10% reached the companies now in terms of the local authorities participation Metro new approvals exceed certain notices which are far from what has been approved in the current context I can only look at these numbers with concern and then we will look at these RF with a great attention and demand usually I normally say then just recovering the Portuguese economy we need to know how to transform it more than recovering transforming is important and that's why economic development requires deep changes reforms political reforms which have been carried out and since we have a parliament with the majority of a party it's it's time for these reforms to be carried out to transform taking it that advantage of this opportunities window of opportunity as M&L Fernandes mentioned at least a window to be to be used in a in the short term we need we need to know how to correct some anomalies to transform the Portuguese economy and by complying with three objectives and these three objectives is the dimension were composed by micro small enterprise we need to transform we need to increase we need to aggregate so first dimension second of all innovation requires investment investment capital so it's important to be able to use these funds to transform the Portuguese economy and with these two at previous objectives scale a scale dimension innovation will be able to achieve a better internationalization and by by meeting these three objectives will be able to transform our economy this opportunity cannot be lost this investment has to be carried out it's not enough to announce it but it has to be it executing that's why we want to make sure that it does happen yes thank you and now because we have two mayors in it so I will ask both of them of course the something which is linking directly to the the topic of this panel which is what about consultation with local government in Portugal how and what about the participation in the implementation of the program which is ongoing this is the first element but this first element second element would like to ask the the mayor of the mayor of Braga you know when we when when the mayor Moedas explained the the strategy of Lisbon in fact it was about the changing the approach this is about the reforms reforming the behavior of the local there's you have in the in the port of Spain you have more than 30 big reforms 30 big reforms I mean these reforms cannot certify I think so without the local government these reforms will not be possible to to mate so I think that the the question is what about consultation of the local for instance what about the participation of the local others in the reforms but Isabella said is the beginning it's just it's not just about money because the money cannot be spent without reforms so if there is no reforms the money will not be spent so the first yours thank you Yan and greetings to all the participants special thanks to Siegfried Siegfried and Zeminal Fernandes all dear colleagues from the European Parliament dear colleagues from the committee of the region's mayors my dear friends Moedas our very good friend it is a pleasure to participate in this session even if the news that I can share about the Portuguese implementation of the national recovery and resilience plan is not so good especially in terms of what was the process that led to this moment as it was mentioned the rrf was brought to light in a very special moment in Europe gathering the will of all the member states gathering and expectation that it will be something that will cause a huge impact and a big transformation in all the territories and to do so I think it will be beyond our imagination not to involve the authorities that are more conscious of what are the needs of each of the communities which are more capable of fulfilling each of the projects which are the regional and local authorities that's what we have been advising many many times as Rafa said in the committee of the regions in euro cities and many other international networks and in Portugal we had a very nice strategic document that was initially prepared by the current minister of economy but then when it was translated to the actual natural recovery and resilience plan it was a big source of disappointment because it didn't fill the expectations it didn't engage most of the stakeholders not only the local and regional authorities but as we've heard the other civic society stakeholders and the projects were mainly decided on a centralized base and centralized based in many levels centralized based because they focus mainly in the needs of the national government of the national authorities rather than the other institutions centralized because management was fully concentrated in Lisbon and in the national government and even for instance took into account the recommendation that we had in the northern region to allocate the specific amount of the funds directly to the region which was by then 47 percent of the funds it was centralized in terms of geography because we looked at the projects and they were mainly distributed to the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto even if some other cities all across the country had the same needs and had the same will to develop projects Braga which is one of the major cities in Portugal in terms of growth of population in terms of economic development as I used to kid only appeared once in the national recovery and resilience plan and it was in the word Bragança so it was not for Braga itself and we saw that all over the territory and I think that was a misconception of the national recovery and resilience plan but then what we saw it was also that for instance even when we had the specific priorities that were interesting for instance the investment on cultural sites and cultural equipment they were all concentrated in the ones that belong to the national state so every single venue that belongs to a local authority or that is implemented in the territory wasn't eligible for that type of funding and I think that after this process things have been slightly improving we have been watching a lot of calls being issued and in Braga good things are happening we have just approved an application to do the biggest students residence new students residence in the country with an investment of over 25 million euros for 700 beds we have been approving several applications in terms of refurbishment and reconstruction of households for families that are low income and according to the Primero de Reito program we are now investing over 10 million euros in hundreds of houses for families but there's still a long way to go and I think that for the future I'll just end sharing for brief concerns one is reinforcing Carlos's idea about the time of implementation because it's not only about the time for new projects even for the ones that are being developed and taking into account the current circumstances we are having a huge difficulty to have people applying for the tenders to have the projects processed and so I think that to an extension of the timing is crucial to be successful in this area the second is connected with costs because now we are looking at what is the difficulty to reach some supplies in terms of raw materials for the construction sector for instance we are looking at difficulties in terms of cost of energy we are looking at difficulties in terms of lack of workers and this is increasing hugely the cost of all the projects which obviously creates a big difficulty for the implementation of them the third dimension which is very connected with Portugal and you mentioned about reforms we are going under a decentralization process right now and I think under many difficulties there is something that this decentralization process is showing to light which is the lack of responsibility and commitment of the national government to crucial areas and the well-being of the people if we look at the quality of the infrastructures in the health area or in the education area we have a sense of urgency of projects that need to be developed and that should be allocated under the RRF or the national recovery and resilience plan but the national government for instance is diverting those investments towards the new framework the Portugal 2030 and trying to steal in a sense money from the local authorities to provide funding for these efforts that should be made by the national government and my final remark because I'm also the reporter of the Committee of the Regions for the Sustainable Development Goals it's that in the design and the conception of the plans most of the national recovery and resilience plans didn't address the Sustainable Development Goals at all I think that in the phase of implementation in the phase of the monitoring we need to see how these are matching the the projects that are being developed towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Yes thank you Ricardo and the let's not forget that the whole RRF has been created because of firstly because of the covid so the this was the first reaction let's let's find the money on the market let's make the urgent and temporary solution and let's make it quick and faster etc but because of this covid the the element of social pillar of this is from the very beginning very important and then you look at all the documents you have the climate you have digital but also social so the question is what about participation of stakeholders from this sector from the social matters in Portugal so I would like to to ask Mr Manuel demos the president of the union of portuguese messes please the floor is yours. Good morning I'd like to thank the invitation addressed by Zemin Wellefinange to speak to you how we see the implementation of our RRP following the different aspects that Portugal and Europe has experienced because of covid let me say that Zemin Wellefinange was the mayor of a city hall that related quite well with its mercies not only for the social development of that community but also so that people would live better and would be happier that's the reason of our presence here today and some another remark and the mercies are civil society organizations people that help that gather to help and it's a principle of european solidarities that the portuguese have shown during the discoveries in the 17th century that is a portuguese pattern three portuguese mercies and two portuguese and embrace and that is why today the largest european organization is located in asia and in brazil spreading the word in the word of the mercies where there are two thousand or so more and in latin america and many other countries whether european ideal as was mentioned yesterday the freedom solidarity is not only affirmed it is practice put into practice it is something which is quite interesting and very distinctive in our case in portugal we're concerned especially concerned at this moment um our main preoccupation our main concern are the elderly protecting the elderly and it's within that context that we've been that we were able to resist during a covid we developed several social responses special uh we developed quite a lot of a special of social responses that unfortunately in three minutes unfortunately three minutes are not enough and the rrp is a great opportunity because something which is sure is that we are going to live older so we need to look at demography and longevity in a serious way the rrp has disappointed us and has been disappointing us for two reasons first of all the welcome given to the social sector did not match the portuguese reality in the matter and when it happened the values values um for instance the social health areas long-term care as the spanish uh have mentioned for that is contribution support does not exceed 30 percent of any investment and 30 investment still when men is still even if there are many agreements in practice this is not going to be translated into achievements so therefore innovation everything that we are trying to do and it's true as mentioned by anton sariva and it also has to be said that today there's a greater link but there's a greater link we would we would still to carry out different actions and as zeeman welford mentioned we might lose an opportunity we might lose this opportunity yes so this is again uh showing that what we would like to uh to know is not only how much money is possible the money is first how the money is spent but what about the the results what about the the achievements what about the consequence how the money spend in terms of concrete concrete elements i mean isabel has told about at the beginning we are still in the same same level of course the what we are really interested is what what is the the the consequence the result of of this money this is not the question of again there is the money we should spend it i mean this is the this is not the political way of thinking the political way of thinking how to make it correctly i want to make the real results and our last panel is not the least Mr. Duarte Novo always if i can pronounce it very correctly mayor of olivera de beiro it's okay so let's uh let's go to the point let's be very frank and because this is the last panelist will you do it i mean do you have enough time to do it because the the time is very limited the time is absolutely limited so the question is from my from my point of view as a practitioner if you want to make it to the half of 26 it should be the project which are almost ready prepared and who are the projects the projects are in the local government they are they are prepared and ready etc if we start in in the investment process normal investment process you will not manage so the question is what is your situation when you manage i mean are you enough time to do it at the end you was a sorry i will not do it so this is sorry it's very practical but no let's let's say it because we as members of the parliament would like to know it because very often we say this time limited is not very very efficient so because we will be in in a very difficult we understand all the problems with the financial market etc etc but okay let's go to reality mayor of the city where you manage thank you very much thank you for this invitation this in this opportunity given to a small region elevated to buy very well known region in the by harder to be able to speak to you about our relationship opportunity and how it co-exists how it takes advantage of opportunities to develop itself and it's when our colleague from braga mentioned the problem the problems regarding the the rrp how it was idealized and some examples and that were said i'm going to pick on two or three examples i'm going to be objective the strategy for local housing a strategy that the municipality of oliva de do bar is using and this with funds but which is extremely necessary but then there were problems in our country that never happened it was a real estate reform and the countries a real estate aspects oliva de do bar with projects that were ready was faced with the problem of not being able to put in the housing market that real estates for students for families those more needy families there's one it there's it's been a year that we've tried to buy housing and we've not been able to do there are 6 000 dwellings which are not inhabited which are inhabited and the municipality strategy is not to build new ones but it's to recover those that are derelict and to give life again give life to the city to downtown in its cities to the center and we're not able to do so because there's a bureaucratic apparatus behind it that has hampered the fact that we're able to acquire purchase when it's the market that is booming with its prices booming makes it impossible for the local authority to purchase this real estate there has to be different reforms so before we start investing 2026 is very short for us to be able to carry out this investment the municipality does not have 10 million has 6 million which are for that investment and it has already localized many of these houses but is not able to unblock the industrial expansion growth we can't grow if we do not have companies or industries how can the municipality start with this expansion all you better do is expanding 100 actors in strategic locations and then in order to actually buy the plot of land it will take three to four years you know there's so much bureaucracy that it takes a lot of time so how can we respond to a an entrepreneur who asks for infrastructures to be available how can I get to europe how can I and my colleagues in in my region we've proposed that one of the needs that should be included in the rrf would be a fast connection to spain and then to europe why isn't this included as one of the objectives of rrf and this is we think that the economic growth and social growth is important for the growth of our territories if we create a set of obstacles to municipalities you know and that actually go against the the longings of their populations in the country how can we spend you know the funds that are available and i understand that investment should be made in these areas private initiative is forgotten but public initiative should actually emit private initiative but it is limited by this type of circumstances michael from braga spoke about the decentralization of competencies well in fact we are working with this without means to actually be able to achieve the primary objectives of this decentralization of competencies we cannot promote education if we do not have the means the equipments need to be restructured and we do not know exactly how they will be financed at oliver at the bar we felt that we should prepare a set of projects our strategy can't be just done you know having financing in mind or funding in mind we need to think what we really want to do and this is what we're trying to do at oliver at the bar we're trying to transmit very clearly which is our strategy where exactly we want to be socially speaking economically speaking and also culturally speaking of course we are a municipality with the 23 000 inhabitants one of the smallest municipalities in the avedo region but i also feel that it is not just the municipality of oliver at the bar but the whole region because they all think the same way and the mayors are thinking along the same lines and with regards to the what they feel is the most important for the growth of their region thank you very much so it's quite clear this the discussion is that you see very well that not having a very close cooperation with local authorities and the other stockholders is not the question is not correct this is just a very serious mistake this is a serious mistake because this mistake which can be very costly you know because if there is no close cooperation it it came from the outside of portugal but also from portugal i mean this is the same we have about 10 minutes for two three questions to the panelists next i will ask juman to to make the the summary of this debate but if you have any questions or remarks to the panelists please raise your hand and introduce yourself anybody wants to take the floor if it's not the case i will give the floor to juman we'll speak again in portuguese please well PPA corrected things and we were the ones that were able to have an article you know for consultation of local stakeholders but the portuguese government you know just pretended that this consultation had been made we consider that local powers regional powers companies and social stakeholders institutions such as the mercies are essential to create quality projects we need quality projects and they know better than anyone else what is needed and they would they should be involved in the creation of a plan and creating regulations and these regulations are very important for a good execution many companies are able to are are compelled to actually torture projects you know so that they fit in the regulations and then they are useless so the regulations and the involvement of local powers is a very important step for success and others like all those such as the mercies are very important for the success and the implementation of the uh rrf another conclusion 2026 for the execution of rrf goes against the quality of projects i believe we will execute everything we will spend everything but it is not enough to spend we need to invest we need to invest well we need to guarantee the future the future of all the territory and of all portries with regards to this issue of 2026 the epp and zikvid morris and that was the leader of these negotiations tried to just to to go up to 2027 members states did not accept this you know they shot themselves so to speak we will probably not be able to change you know a change on this date 2027 provided we have a majority in the council and we will have this authorization but i also understand the commission the member states have lots of millions that are being not that are not being used and the calendar is a problem here 2014 2020 needs to be executed until 2023 we have about 4500 million used unused we set at port school 2030s from 2021 to 2029 but we are already in 2023 and we have not executed the 4 million from port school 2020 so which is going to be the financial execution at the port school 2020 2030 this year zero there are the laying things on purpose and then we have the rrf and governments enjoy rrf but socialist governments just love rrf they just love it because it's 100 percent money no national co-financing it even increases the state budget it is centralized they do as they wish so they pretend they hear but they don't hear and they use this calendar and these amounts depending on the elections calendar well and and then we have port school 2030 they are governing in favor of the country the party and not in favor of the country and we need to govern for a specific objective and of course for port school we do not have cross border projects and this is something that did not materialize the union of energy interconnections if we look into the object the into digital we do not have we do not have this kind of cross border projects the commission will come up with a proposal but if they do that they will relax member states and they will delay execution and this execution is absolutely essential now i would like to think of another aspect local powers have an increasing number of competences and you know with regards to the pandemic to the consequences of the war local powers are the ones that are in the field and that have to to provide some response but central governments are not really implied in this they could be much more another aspect has to do with transparency we propose to have in the regulations an article for the creation of a digital platform so that we could be familiar with all the final beneficiaries of rrf and to know where where the funds are used it is unbelievable but for instance in spain they're not aware exactly where the funds from rrf are being allocated so we wanted to have a digital platform a simple thing to actually show which are the final beneficiaries of rrf the council and the member states did not accept we had to issue a statement so that this objective could be materialized and that this and to recommend this to member states another conclusion regarding the articulation of funds now if you look into port school we have according to the EU commission our rrf has less impact than Greece's rrf or Croatia's rrf in terms of GDP growth this is because we don't know what we want because first of all we present rrf then we present the port school 2030 no articulation whatsoever we have elements of port school 2030 or elements of rrf that could be in port school 2030 and now we have things that we could be doing via rrf that will not materialize because we did not have this articulation between rrf port school 2030 which is the partnership agreement and this requires some other thing that has been mentioned here as well the fact that projects that are being approved locally should be part of a national strategy where one tries to find the synergies and achieve objectives that should be common objectives in the regulations with included several x's and one of them is territorial cohesion another one was for SMEs thinking of the this objective of local powers in their integration in development because competitiveness is essential but we can't have competitiveness without cohesion social and social development is paramount but in order to achieve that we need to have economic development and Antonio Sarajevo and Manuel Lems are two examples and we know from what they've said that you know we need to have these these two actions so we are losing an opportunity due to the lack of quality of projects they can't be designed overnight and then we have very easy reforms you know for for to spend our money if we have any difficulties implementing they will increase the amount for each of the project this is no strategy whatsoever this is the same thing that is being done to execute port school 2030 local powers have their own strength they need to demand their involvement as part of the rrf we have an additional of 1.6 billion euro Romania has a decrease vis-à-vis initial rf and this 1.6 million euro could be used to actually do something that was not planned for where are we going to use that our rrf has more 1.6 billion euros now with repower you for energy we have an extra 700 million now so we have overall 15 000 million in in subsidies but we will have that amount in in in loans so thank you very much for the quality of your interventions ricard rieu is also a model mayor and he said that municipalities were not involved and this is not something to reinforce the power of the mayors or local powers but it has to do with national interest democracy would be more respected if that was to become a reality and i believe that we would this way guarantee the quality of projects so thank you very much we now have a coffee break after the coffee break we'll be back for the second panel dear colleagues welcome back to the second session the second panel of our event this morning the title of our second panel is enhancing synergies between the recovery funds and the traditional eu funds key to a speedy recovery and resilience we will have again a distinct panel with us for the second panel but before the panel starts we will have a key address by one of the most prominent epp leaders at regional level in europe and this is the president of the madrid community isabel diaz iuso isabel thank you very much for being with us this morning thank you very much for coming from madrid to lisbon to be with the epp to be with your political family isabel is a winner she won elections in madrid she will keep on winning elections in madrid and she is a developer she develops madrid she makes madrid attractive for entrepreneurs for investments she shows that job creation growth can happen in spain if political leadership is right and i say if it happens if it can happen in madrid under her leadership it can happen in the whole of spain we are very happy isabel that you are with your political family where you will always be received by friends internationally we are happy to hear from you what happens in madrid how you are developing madrid please the floor is yours thank you for coming to lisbon uh you will always be a friend of lisbon the floor is yours please vice president del grupo parlamentario popular europeo miembros del parlamentario europeo miembros del grupo parlamentario popular del comité de las regiones autoridades de los gobiernos regionales y municipales de los estados miembros de la unión europea que nos acompañan presidente de la confederación de empresas de portugal queridos amigos muy buenos días a todos primer lugar quiero daros las gracias por invitarme a compartir las razones del éxito de la comunidad de madrid en política creo que es fundamental preguntarnos para que estamos en politics i believe it is important to uh say why we are here and uh i would like to el corto plazo que va más allá de recaudar que es lo fácil en política va de gestionar y defender unos valores y también va de defender que no estamos en política conseguir las cosas y de sentir que nosotros no estamos en política si hubiera que resumir con dos palabras lo que estamos haciendo madrid a través de nuestra words what we've been doing in Madrid via policies we can say that to defend life and freedom which are the two most important assets that we have madrid is more fashionable than ever with creating creative means to actually develop our city during the pandemic and this took us to the international window and we are now a place of contrasts of talents of openness we are an example that the welfare state can go together with the solid economy liberal economy that is capable of improving the life of our citizens is very important we don't actually um withdrawing the project that we need to implement and we don't hyper regulation and we don't absurd norms it is also uh it also has to do with respect for property for companies and for families and this is why we are the most important economy in spain with the lowest debt with the highest salaries and we are the one that creates most jobs and where foreign investment is more concentrated and we are also a place in the world that surprises people due to the capacity that we have important events such as the NATO summit the climate summit jmj we also have lots of public hospitals that are recognized internationally the best european health system and we are always trying to develop important projects and we have the best nightlife capital of culture and of digitization and this was achieved thanks to governments of the popular party in the community of Madrid we are reducing taxes in a careful manner of course and we have an history of 18 years and the results are there to show what we've done i would like to sum up our policies in several aspects one first of all is economic freedom and openness we have economic activity that is totally free we have a total freedom with regards to the opening hours of business and citizens can in fact choose the hours they would like to attend this kind this this places and and shop we have an open a law for an open market and an entrepreneur that is located elsewhere in the country can in fact operate in the community of Madrid without any further barriers now young entrepreneurs freelancers uh have lots of difficulties as we know we believe in a fair uh taxation and obviously you need to pay taxes not to in order to implement whatever is important for people and um this way we've demonstrated that we are a competitive region the most competitive region in Spain and also one of the most competitive regions in europe where uh those who have less pay less taxes but we are also the only uh region that has not its own uh uh taxes uh designed to meet the ambitions of the administrations we have foreign investment and uh we believe that sometimes the government of Sanchez works against the community of Madrid they've created a tax that almost does not exist in the EU and the government has uh wants to in fact extend this tax to the region of Madrid also taking into consideration that 65 percent a foreign invest investment happens in Madrid we are uh allocating uh also a good share of our resources to um social policies we are aware that people have certain problems that need to be responded to we have a debt of 13.6 percent against that 127 percent of the central government we cannot spend what we do not have and we cannot burden future generations with a debt that will mortgage their future we also facilitate the freedom of choice the choice of public services and to do that citizens pay their taxes we were the first region and I believe so far the first one that allows citizens to actually choose the education model that they want their children to attend their preferences and this grants them the possibility to actually choose the form of education that they want their children to attend especially for children with special needs we have a bilingual offer and people in the Madrid regions can choose their health center or hospital and that's what they pay for we have the government that makes less public expenditure in the country we always account for our expenses in the parliament and we also support citizens in their personal decisions among which we would like to to to um support those that are connected with the biggest problem one of the biggest problems that we have which is the birth rate we've created an innovative plan in order to overcome barriers economic barriers such as a housing that will prevent us from being in the future a region that can move forward in Europe we have an increasing number of deserted villages we will be living longer but we will be part of an aging population and we are isolating people children that have uh problems or with regards to accessing or not accessing but rather addiction to new technologies they use technologies new technologies inadequately and also among the elderly who are alone we have less children less brothers we are increasingly more isolated and solitude is going to be the big pandemic of the 21st century and we want to have this in our political agenda what we do is to look into Madrid during the next decades we are not just looking to ourselves we want to know exactly where we want to go to we want to transform our society we want to be in charge and we have the next generation funds from the EU they are being managed in our country in a manner that is has very little transparency and they really don't take in mind the short and the long term and they do not take into consideration the way we manage hospitals or schools besides you know the distribution of funding is done in an ideological manner and usually the this kind of expenditure is preserved to the end of the the legislature to actually buy votes now without the use of these fundings does really try to change the situation among farmers for instance and among the population and we want to actually work together with entrepreneurs with those that are independent that are not connected to any form of power we are working in order to preserve our natural and cultural heritage they don't belong to us here they belong to the next generations and it is for that that we are implementing true environmental policies I would like to ask we speak about environment and ecology these are very important challenges now we have technological tools and knowledge but why is it that we abandon our natural and cultural heritage Europe and the Mediterranean is burning we are always listening to people speaking about ways funding should be transferred and every summer we have these forest fires now we in the Madrid community we've planned against fires with the best tools and the funds are not just used for that they are actually used for policies that sometimes do not really get to people no doubt people from Madrid are very concerned with the environment and the quality of the air and and we see for instance that we are implementing a decarbonization plan there are lots of contrasts in the region of Madrid where we have the second most important national park in Spain we are planting half a billion of Spain in a legislature that wants to be a green this will cover an area of 20 kilometers of flora and fauna biodiversity to actually build forests inside towns so that the new generations can in fact have the opportunity of living in environments that are much more natural we are also working together with the northern area of Madrid investments that are bringing together investments for investors from all over the world to recycle water but we also want to be a reference of individual freedom for those that have fled their country due to nationalist policies and the only thing that they want to do is to live in a peaceful manner and according to their beliefs we will never stop defending democracy and the rule of law and strong institutions this is the last resource that the citizen has whenever he loses everything so i would like to use this forum to actually ask liberal democracies to take care of each other because what happens in a country when this freedom disappears is is negative for all otherwise the world would be increasingly less free freedom of expression is most likely the form of freedom that is most condemned around the world by totalitarianism and this is something that we need to tackle the divisions between different identities we always try to actually find the best way to to help people so that they are able to maintain their lives and their livelihood at present i'd like to say that there are big threats around the election elections and we believe in freedom life and prosperity and we need to care for each other to actually help people all over the world whereas so many people do not go to school have are not entitled to basic schooling so many women are prosecuted there are security issues and also a handful of problems that we need to respond to some of them some of these people get to Madrid and they tell us that they've lost their country and they don't want to lose their second country so we need to implement all this in Spain yesterday we had events that make us denounce everything that all the everything that is perpetrated against freedom and we need to sometimes overcome we need to overcome all these problems and we need to defend the values this is something that is happening today in Madrid a very lively community made of people that of course represent are represented by us we represent the people people from left to right children and to the elderly and we also think about liberal policies that are being implemented all over the world we need to denounce the places where the rules of the game are not being met in our case probably we are the only ones in Europe that is being government by effect between left and what we do in Madrid is that these are situations that happen with authoritarian governments and some think that the ends justify the means they did not respect the results of elections and they don't really care much for democracy and they think that they can accuse politicians for the state of events there are obstacles to democracy they create a society that is dependent and they prevent citizens from having the will to create to have children to grow and to actually trust in the better future they are afraid citizens are afraid and this culture disappears and we don't want this to happen we don't want to have a society the way society is actually materializing in certain points of the world in a nutshell the popular party in Madrid had a very good result during the last election and from right to left we call on all the members of society we've been given a majority we will now have a majority as a result of these elections and in our case we want to win the national elections next December we cannot be in the worst news stop condemning what happens for instance with public funding the issues that have been voiced by the news we don't want this to happen it is going to be a difficulty for Spain but life is not easy and if it is easy it's probably because we are not leaving it the way we should be leaving it thank you very much President thank you very much for sharing your experience with us for sharing your thoughts which are very useful for colleagues in Portugal and for mayors from other corners of Europe we wish you of course best of luck for the elections on the 28th of May and we are convinced that the more local and regional leaders party the popular will have in Spain the more opportunities for people for enterprises in Spain for development for growth and the better it will also be for Portugal and for relations between Portugal and Spain so good luck for you for the elections on that note we are moving to the second panel let me just introduce the colleagues of the second panel title of the panel enhancing synergies between the recovery funds and the traditional EU funds key to a speedy recovery and resilience and I invite up here Olga Geblewicz the president of the EPP group in the committee of the regions and president of West Pomerania region in Poland Olga will lead and moderate this panel Kostas Bakoyan is the mayor of Athens Marco Marcula the president of the Helsinki region and former president of the of the committee of regions Eduardo Oliveira Esosias the president of the confederation of portuguese farmers as you wish Francesco Caleros the president of the confederation of portuguese tourism and Vars Coferas the mayor of Ponte Lima thank you Olga Geblewicz you have the floor please okay dear friends before we start I would like to right now invite our dear friend a very experienced MEP and well-known friend Paolo Angel the vice president of the EPP group to opening remarks Paolo the floor is yours thank you very much my friend Olga Geblewicz and naturally I'd like to welcome all of you and especially the president of PSD which Montenegro and of CDS Nunomello let me only have a first remark and then I will turn to Portuguese and I'll be very very brief but the first remark to thank very very much to Siegfried Muresen, Jan Albrecht and José Manuel Fernández because they organized with their all heart and commitment this session and it is something that probably is not noted but it's not easy to have here today in our panel the president of Madrid community Isabel Diaz Ayuso that is probably one of the most I'd say inspirational politicians of EPP and of Europe and she knows that in Portugal she is very well known and she's a reference for all of us then also Rafał Traskowski the mayor of Warsaw that is a very very good and old friend and that is also a prominent politician in Europe and in Poland I remember that he was a candidate to be president of the republic and he lost by a very very very small margin then to have here Costas Pacloyanis the mayor of Athens and the time sure that we'll give to the Portuguese government a very very useful lesson because Greece is making a tremendous job in this coordination between normal European funds and next generation EU and also to Marco Marcola the president of Helsinki region so to have this I'd say four stars together with Carlos Moedas Ricardo Rio and the other mayors here this is a panel of excellence and EPP is really the driving force of Europe and here we know that EPP wants to be close to the people at local and regional level and with that to change our own country so thank you very much it was really great that the three of you that I would say the Mr. Budget the three Mr. Budget of EPP group and of European Parliament were really capable of doing this in our capital in Lisbon so thank you very much this being said I'll be very brief and I will turn to Portuguese only to give you three main I'd say points for discussion debate reflection the first one concerning today's topic that I'd like to emphasize is that in the Portuguese case and this is a flaw of the socialist government there is no coordination between the RRP and the cohesion funds and that is its nonsense and it's kind of a waste when the country has a financial support framework for 2026 2030 and is not capable it is incapable to coordinate link these two frameworks and I believe that this point is a negative one for Portugal because of an error of planning by the socialist government second of all our RRP next generation EU is fully geared towards current expenditure not geared towards recovery and resilience it's geared towards paying daily costs just to give you an example to fix the tiles of the museum contemporary museum of Shado is eight represents 8.8 million to recover this building but it's not recovering the economy second point on the court of auditors also has already prepared a report saying that monitoring control evaluation of expenses within the RPP hasn't been duly guaranteed in Portugal and that is why we have an enormous volume of funding but how this spending is carried out does not exist finally is I would like to say the following and I'm going to conclude that is the RRP and the cohesion funds are a great opportunity for a country like Portugal maybe the all the last opportunity to move forward in development to make one more step but since the government is consumed that is treating its internal wound there is no space for it to think about the future not even any room even with a worse RRP to be able to use what can be used and there is no room nor space to think about the cohesion fund and by 2030 so at this moment we are wasting our opportunity while the internal battles within the socialist party is seen by all and within the government it's a factor that which is harming the launching of that opportunity maybe things might change regarding the RRP but the final deadline is 2026 and so time is of essence and again wishing you a very productive discussion and also I'd like to think say the following to our social partners when you are invited by when you were invited by this panel to be to take part all said yes right away it means that civil the Portuguese civil society from our culture tourism enterprises is fully even from the social sector is fully on board fully committed so that the RRP and European funds be an opportunity not which is not lost but used thank you very much much Paolo and to right now do your friends because before we start I would like to firstly on behalf of the EPP group in the European Committee of Regents I would like to firstly thank you very much very cordially as a president of EPP and SUOR to Zikrit Murasian for actually inviting this format to meeting together between European politicians and local politicians we have started last year in Warsaw together with Rafał Czaskowski right now we are here in Lisbon thanks to hospitality Portuguese hospitality and I think that it is something really what we can even more develop and thanks to this we can only deliver deliver on the ground thanks to the better communication with with Brussels with Europe so thank you thank you personally and thank you on behalf of all local and regional friends then of course I would like to thanks to our guests to our hosts I'm sorry and on behalf of guests and first of all unfortunately he's he had to leave but of course Carlos Moedasz for organizing everything but of course we I'm more than happy that we have both leaders of our EPP affiliated parties the Nuno Mello thank you very much and I'm very happy that that Luis Montenegro joined us and I was following the recent polls in in in a political scene and I realize that right now you are leader of a biggest strongest party so thank you for your strong commitment and for your strong leadership and it is very very promising so Luis once again thank you thank you very much why I think that our meetings are so important you know that as a local and regional authorities we are implementing something like 90 percent of whole investments in Europe I have a lot plenty of examples from my country from my region in the Poland presidents of regions have a really huge power because we are managing authorities in European funds so I as I've been for 12 years the president of a region I have a lot of experience on the ground but I know that my colleagues have their own experience from all corners of Europe and it will be a great opportunity to share how we can change our reality on the ground and what I would at the very first moment only add that you know it is some kind of difference between even language we use in comparison with a socialist because socialists usually are talking about spending European money and in EPP we are talking about investing European money investing for a people investing in the people for for example just like the European social funds and investing with the people because we are talking about the people what you in which field we should really invest and it is something what differ us today during a panel we will discuss how make this investment even stronger thank you thanks to the synergy between traditional funds and rrf as you surely know I don't have nothing to add because Rafał told that in Poland rrf is completely blocked so we don't have any experience on that how to build a synergy so that's why firstly I would like to invite our good friend Kostas Bakoyanis mayor of Athens and member of our political group in the committee of regions to share their his experience I think that I know that in Greece we have our government so we have much better experience that for example on porn that are in Portugal because that's the flow is yours well good afternoon it's wonderful to be back in beautiful Lisbon I think that it's my first time back since 2020 I think and one can sense a change in the air what can sense a newly found sense of confidence and dynamism and quitters to our good friend Carlos for making this possible he is a source of optimism for all of us mirrors all around the world and of course my sincere thanks to the PPE for bringing us all together I think moments are like these are quite important because we have the opportunity to get together and learn from each other together we are stronger that's something that's very very clear for us from the north the south or from the west to the east of Europe now this is actually a major political topic so if I may I'd like to get some distance and think about how in a few years we're going to draw our conclusions about what we're doing so in a sense it is about European integration it is about strengthening and enriching our democracy it's also about Europe's place in the world let's say that the time of crisis Europe acted relatively fast and yes a major step was taken towards European integration I think we can all be very proud of that however when we go to the second criterion strengthening our democracies and enriching our democracies and actually bringing our citizens closer to European institutions or to put it differently and quote a headline from political this morning making sure that we send a message that we don't live in our glass houses which is our party's agenda I think there is much more to be desired because the truth is that in planning the fund civil society social partners the private sector and local government were completely excluded now the third criterion being Europe's place in the world I'm afraid my friends this is where it gets a bit depressing many of us who are in touch with our colleagues and our counterparts from on the other side of the Atlantic mayors and governors on a city and state level in the United States have a very different picture how much money the congress despite the US Congress despite being deadlocked and toxic and partisan has been able to channel to the cities into the states and how quickly they've been able to take advantage of this money the mayor of New York and New York being a city that has almost a population of Greece and almost a population of Portugal was telling me just before Christmas that they've already made use of all their COVID money all of the funds have actually reached their natural beneficiaries so why am I saying this not to whine or to complain I don't think that's the point I'm saying is because we need to draw lessons if we want to move forward on a national and a European level now I'm proud to report that in the case of Greece things are different as you know we have a member government which despite moving very very quickly and very very efficiently very quickly involved social partners local government and civil society academic institutions in the process deliberation over what's up nevertheless deliberation because we do live at a time of networks and not at a time of hierarchies as a result right now if you look at our numbers you see that Greece has in a very I'd say on Greek way being able to make very good use of the funds quickly and positively do this with maximum transparency and at the same make sure that as you said that it's not just about spending the money it's about investing the money which is what we're doing in the city of Athens as well right now the city of Athens has the biggest budget it ever had it's in its history and at the same time has been able to cut city taxes considerably right now we're moving forward with the biggest public investment program in the history of our city and yes we have three axes number one is our digital transition a hundred percent of our city services are already digital number two is building towards a green city everything and anything we do we saw from something very small something very big has a response to the climate crisis at its heart and number two it's about building a fair and inclusive city so this is our moment and we are optimistic but we fully appreciate as our colleague from I've read said before that it's going to be a difficult climb and it's going to be a long climb however and so I that I can end much like I started I very much believe that when we're all together and when we draw strength from each other we can always be much better and at the end of the day serve our people much better once again many many thanks for the kind of rotation thank you Kostas for sharing this optimistic information right now because you know till now it was very we had a lot of pessimistic experiences right now I would like to go to Marco Marcula to president of Helsinki region member of our group former president of the committee of regions asking Marco how to build the synergy when we have what was what have been said different philosophy in these two two instruments projects contra reforms on the other hand different timing and on the other hand not clear demarcation as well so how to do it really really efficient how to how you can do it in Finland okay thank you all gear and I had thought that I have three kind of ways to have this short intervention and luckily that you kind of picked up one of those so and what we just heard Kostas to talk about so I will take a bit different angle and especially focus on how to make this transformation positive transformation what Carlos Moedas was describing that he has challenged his staff and all Lisbon and Portugal to make so how can we make that fast so that it serves the citizens it supports the citizens and especially the well-being and interest of citizens so so let's take and I think that the keyword here is is innovation why now especially after the miss the potency legal attack so we in in the EU we are more united than ever so that we need stronger EU and we need to have a clear targeted efforts but we need this transformation to be more open-minded Europe based on our European democratic value on on which the EPP is not just a strong believer but we are the base for that and what does that mean let me first take the example of Finland because we are the EU country has faced tens of years the Russian neighborhood we tried to take that positively be good friends but still seeing that the system that the Soviet Union and Russia have had so that's not what we want to happen in Finland we have 1300 kilometers border land border border with Russia so we are one of the best equipped military nation in Finland and to have you as well especially portuguese so an understanding Finland is actually we are a big country or small country depends on how you measure our number of inhabitants is half of Portugal we are a bit more than five million only but our size that's close to four times more so we are one of the largest by area in in the EU and then this border with Russia so now the citizens after the 24th of February last year citizens started to request that we need now finally make the decision and to NATO to have a stronger EU by the help of that and then after a couple of weeks our EPP or the president of the republic who is former EPP leaders suddenly made a clear approach that it's time to move on and then the socialist led government started to support that and then we looked to Sweden so okay let's join we two strong Nordic countries we need to come to NATO and that means as well so that the EU is more relevant than ever to move on but now then to what we can create for this what is our recovery topic uh and the interest on that so it means as well that the role of innovation uh needs to be kind of upgraded more and more uh madam Carvalho we've worked a lot in the past years when I was the president with the parliament so how we can accelerate get the people and political decision makers understand it's the human capital it's intellectual capital which was four years and years strong actually in in Poland as well I have a lot of good professors friends there who have said so much about this human capital and how to invest that and what does this upgrade the role of innovation mean so one of our strong commissioners Maria Gabrielle introduced in in July the new European innovation agenda and we are the strong believers on that by the committee of the region Maria Gabrielle was in in Finland in a big student and start up even slash so in November so we introduced as the first EU country with our region we quickly made a special kind of implementation plan what does it to mean to mean to be a forerunner in implementing the European Union innovation agenda and this shows on some of these key highlights and actually I think that it's just to fair that our key five messages so so first there is that they're influencing the climate change we the region will be carbon neutral can you guess what is the year 2030 the whole Helsinki region which is a huge area as well goes to 2 million people we will be carbon neutral and not just want we will be 2030 we have a detailed roadmap to move with the private industry with all the investors with municipalities city leaders may use on that second is that we want to showcase how to reach these ambitious EU targets in the innovation agenda by working together locally and European wide we have organized together with the EU joint research center a special science meets regions as a process last year and to move more to the evidence-based policy make to get results to the citizens and to our industry as well everyone needs to be involved thought was that we mobilize extensive regional collaboration to increase our research and development investments together public and private we have a clear target for 2030 to be above five percent of the GDP to R&D Europe wants to reach a three-person level and so on so again so that we realize that that's the only way for a small country located that far in the north to be a prominent player in the global market and the fourth fifth point for us was to do this for another that means that we need more partnerships with you with the we just had a meeting with the isabel the are you're so so on about what we can do together with Madrid and Helsinki and both have started already a lot on the practical so these kind of things are the ones that recovery funds should be targeted to with the cohesion funds but we have certain mainly national regulations slowing down this develop and it's not really that we can easily strategically focus on what the local municipalities cities want what is defined their politically in the strategies of the cities and that should be more that EU gets more we can get more most of this progress by having this making that happen what Carlos Moedas told in his opening statement the examples of this flooding how to tackle those the tunnel pipelines and so or so that the adaptation is a crucial or how he introduced that that what has been done under his leadership for the Lisbon to be really attracting unicorn developments to from startups to scale up growth companies and so this is what we need everywhere in Europe and that's one of the core in this Maria Gabriel's innovation agenda so we need to beat United States we need to beat China because we have the stronger believe and we have the better individual mindset resources here we can get the political support stronger for for that so and what does this mean so just to conclude so that that in using the recovery funds and so the first kind of starting points to repric visit and requirement is that local and regional stakeholders including then companies enterprises knowledge institutions citizens local authorities we need to be leading this in a meaningful way and second day so that this transformative policy needs to be a very much system level so it's all forms of innovation especially societal innovations open minded led by the politics where we use the latest technology we invest more on research of the new technology so that we can combine the results of what we've already heard and what we hear when we have the experts of digitalization from companies and get the industry as in our case so industry strong let's say driver for this transformation investing and taking a global responsibility on all of this and so it's really strongly place-based development and targeted for better Europe and on that so we can do a lot more in the partnership between regions and cities all across thank you thank you thank you thank you very much Marku remind us that that RF money are not only money for a government or for cities and regions but it is also money for a private sector and right now I would like to that's why give a floor to our speakers who will represent private sector firstly Eduardo Oliveira Sosa president of the confederation of portuguese farmers I hope that speak a little bit how to use how we can use this RF money to transform our agriculture and our rural areas as well so please the floor is yours I know that you would like to intervene from lecturing so please the lecture is yours well good morning everybody thank you very much for allowing me speaking here and once we have a immediate translation I will speak in Portugal thank you very much good morning everyone good morning ex president of PST Luiz Montenegro uh your parliament rooms muito uh thank you very much for your invitation uh my name is Fernanda Nunmel which I do not see in the room and also great paul rangel and other members of the panel I would like to thank you for giving me these few minutes our colleague our colleague is also president of a farmers association and Fernanda also part of this an association unfortunately cannot participate and since this panel is on enhancing synergies between the recovery funds and then traditionally funds such as Portugal 2030 and the common agricultural policy in a portuguese case pay pack since we consider that the rpps plan should have been the subject of a wider discussion more comprehensive understanding the different community funding instruments this did not uh happen in terms of rpp a strategy is not recognized for the country and the program is a mechanism mechanism of financial strengthening to for carrying out public investment that in the last years the governor was not able to promote with its own resources that is the rpp was the type of lottery that uh the government uh won and that's why the way with the state it's not understandable that it's been in detriment of expenses as was mentioned their investment for companies because companies need to grow if they want indeed to be resilient and if they want to recover the country that's why it's called the rrp agriculture is an example a paradigm example of the absence of strategies for the country's mirrored in this plan and if a professor antonia costa sales division identified agriculture as an essential sector in portuguese goals recovery the fact is that the rrp ignored this thought agriculture is a structuring activity uh in the vast territory and its development represents an important contribution for the national economy deserving recognition and sustainable development and even of uh of a thrust however agriculture is not included in the country's discussion political political option maybe because of preconceived prejudgements of not being able to understand it's really important and because it's a sector with its own policy which is the common agricultural policy uh whatever the motivation it's wrong but agriculture cannot not be just stuck to the common agricultural policy rural world needs more and its political agricultural policy uh tries to provide different responses but it it's faced with other challenges which are cross cutting to the different sectors of this activity where the rrp's response would be essential and also identifying a flaw in the future's vision and a strategy to achieve it for instance due to climate change fighting uh water short it should be a national plan mobilizing the entire society it's not just uh something claimed by the sector for instance when we when we were aware as was mentioned by sam and elf from nandu when we were aware that the rrp 1.6 million were added to portugal we immediately proposed to the government that that did is 1.6 34 million be dedicated allocated to reinforcing water storage to fight droughts and what is even it wasn't even discussed nor words uh were mentioned the access to high tech uh technology digitalization knowledge these are uh important needs of a modern agriculture so it's very important to have um broadband uh internet coverage once again rrp could be used to take five geese to the entire territory not as it was done to only 80 percent of the population as we know that in portugal um is located but it's will only be productive if accompanied by an organization's restructuring what's what what is happening now it's just scanning documents not really digitalizing the government does not only adopt the necessary funds for investment nor does it create a context where the state is an enabler of investment for these companies the government for the government it seems that growth could be done in the absence of companies for instance regarding the forts we need to change the state's apparatus so that the rrp's intervention can happen and bear its fruit in energy transition intervention of different funds in the agricultural sectors have been limited and is based on the lack of knowledge regarding energy consumption energy consumption in agriculture has its own form portugal needs more industry and also agriculture based uh industry with a solid technical component based on um distribution especially those regions which have been threatened by um by the absence of leaving of population the absence of the border between the border between spain and portugal should be an attraction in terms of proximity with larger markets internal enhancement and as well as external or fundamental the rp could encourage promote the them but after having said so there's only one measure which has been a specific measure dedicated to the rp which is terrif to the future line imagined by the ministry of agriculture with 40 percent of the sums have been allocated to recovering absolute houses building heritage of the state which is in ruin and means it's important to contradict the public aspect of the rrp and also to contradict the urban perspective of the of portugal funds 2030 and consider the rural regions in terms of the operational national of these plans we need to involve the economic agents represented by the different confederation we're concerned with the aromatic function of the rp the it's low execution low implementation that is nine percent and in the end we're going to look back and see a country without identifying irrelevant changes for the our economic social fabric and if after this rp way if we're able not if Romania surpasses us there will then be something wrong this plan this is something that I'm cannot really accept thank thank you very much came back to some pessimistic opinions so right now right now as you surely know we all should really know the one of the most affected branches during the COVID-19 pandemic was the tourism I know because my region is one of the the most popular tourist destination in Poland so I know that's how affected this branch was and actually for such a branches uh recover and resilience uh found was invented so I would like to right now ask our next speaker francesco colheros president of the confederation of portuguese tourism uh how it is in portugal how this money are used to uh fight with uh with consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic mr president the flow is yours thank you very much I also will speak in portuguese if you don't buy it so uh ladies and gentlemen good morning uh I would like to greet uh mr Luis Montnegrou and nun mel the presidents of psd and cds pp and also mr rangel and jose mnl and all members of the european parliament I prepare the speech to actually uh give you an idea of what happens but before I read it I would like to uh answer to your question more precisely when the r rf was discussed we started to uh discuss also with our government so as to add a chapter on tourism to the rf at the time we were explained that uh that was not possible because the uh rrf in our country and also for other countries we've not mentioned specific activities and this would be raised in the future plans so we were careful enough to study the um rf both in spain and in italy and in either of these plans we have a specific chapter for tourism and it was not also true that we did not uh had a special mention to uh other activities because it included two activities that can in fact that are important and those are cultural and see but I don't know whether they will um be able to do actually uh make us thrive uh with our economy we still feel the effects of COVID-19 and now we have the consequences of war and it is within this contest that companies have shown resilience they have emerged even stronger and uh attentive to challenges and the opportunities of new trends and in the market namely digital transition and digital digitization now aware of the uh importance of adapting tourism to technological changes um companies in the area of tourism know that they have an essential role in supporting uh a sustained recovery in order to make this a reality we need to respond to new behaviors and to the new longers of consumers and meet their future expectations this is why we need to design products and uh tourism services that are more relevant than designed to meet the needs of travelers this means that companies need to be economically sound to uh make the required investments and after two years of a pandemic um is something that does not happen and as you said in your presentation this is most likely the sector that has been lowest affected by COVID the r r f is a key instrument to capitalize companies and at the same time it is a support to the response to green transition it will stimulate tourism activity and it will help to achieve the objectives of sustainability until 2027 and we uh wanted to improve tourism namely with an investment 151 million euro in areas such as digitization and climate change via these support programs we want to promote recovery and tourism companies will also always be available for this however in portugal uh support uh has not been getting to company as they are blocked by bureaucracy starting with the applications to these very same programs companies are highly resilient otherwise we would be even more delayed in terms of our recovery post-covid tourism has been the shelter and the engine for the portuguese economy until November last year and according to data from the bank of port school revenue reached uh 18 billion euro and the estimate is that total revenue from tourism last year will be over 20 billion euro i would like also to mention the importance of support tourism in the archipelagos of both madira and the azores looking ahead and looking into the sustainable development of tourism we see that there are factors that continue to be essential and progress has needs to be made the new airport in the region of lisbon and we do expect that the independent committee meets the deadlines that have been defined and that until the end of the year we choose the new location the location of the new airport besides the required infrastructures we need to have strong companies and this is why it is very important that financial support to the company capitalization really happens the agreement on productivity and income needs to be a practical reality and the government needs to come forward with a reduction of the tax flow so that companies have better conditions to continue to go back to investment and create shops uh of course we need to prevent inflation from from uh picking the tourism activity will continue on its way to recovery it will continue to be the uh drive for economic recovery entrepreneurs uh in the field of tourism will try to respond to the new trends and to the needs of consumers i believe that with more or less difficulties tourism will be always on the path of growth we will not um we will continue until we win thank you thank you thank you mr president and right now we are coming back to to our cities and to local this local dimension i would like to right now give a floor to vasco to vasco ferras mayor of ponte lima to share their perspectives and experiences if it is possible in your city to build a synergy between uh this recovery resilience funds and traditional you money how it how it works on the ground so good morning everyone i would like to greet the president of cds psd and also the euro um parliamentarians uh colleagues and also greet all those president mass media and allow me if i may to speak in portuguese to continue with our identity and also it's a way of doing much better and why on this uh topic is a very delicate one i'm taking advantage of the invitation given to do uh city hall of ponte lima were very different from other realities that were mentioned here in terms of municipal management speaking about larger uh portuguese larger cities as well as in the u and we're part of the small medium sized municipalities city halls of the country realities are very different from the ones that we've heard spoken about and at the same time i would like to congratulate the epp for having invited us to take part in this conference because in a three-hour session epp will be listening more to the portuguese local authorities in terms of distribution programming of the uh rp for portugal then the government has heard us so it's heard us longer than the government has listened to us and if there is something um that we should be proud of it's of always being it's always being in the forefront or at the back in relation to the protection policy of our population during the pandemic uh the municipalities were the main drivers safeguarding our population uh with our funds municipal budgets we created screening centers we created vaccination centers we also created the field hospitals and only after and then we created the first restrictions to our populations we're even with the political burden in a period that could be compared at the time without knowing this pre electoral period because during three years not much was done to um to show what um the local authorities were done and then information was requested on what the city halls were doing to provide information to the portuguese uh government so it could legislate we know what are the real needs we know the real needs uh of our society at different levels with everything that uh differentiates us within the territory because we're at territory with very big diversity both in uh cultural gastronomy and experience it was a pity that not everyone was heard in our case of Pont Lima we deal quite well we're coping with uh we're dealing with the rp funding because we were visionary in relation to what we're doing were um making investments that would be normal investing um capital with hidden with uh certain numbers carrying out uh urban regeneration about 360 having to do with accessibility it's urban generation all mayors are concerned with accessibility and they um try to do what they can also investing in culture and since we're part of the theater city and network in terms of audio visuals we are also making investments in housing accommodation but if we had to focus on what is housing in portugal today even what can be the rp support we would have to we would then have a debate that would not last two or three hours but will last almost three months which is a very big problem the country faces we're not just creating one thing it's not only resilient nor um um what we're creating is a greater burden for the municipalities that feel superseded and years from now we'll have more heritage to maintain and without having access to any type of community funding in our specific case we um did a step forward we did not increase social we didn't only increase social housing but we're carrying out intervention in social housing for that uh refurbish one step that is one step out of house many municipalities need social housing creating more social uh housing so in a certain way uh we're um giving another um path to our citizens these lines what we should do that the europe parliamentaries eep another should tell our government please listen to your communities listen to your municipalities to your businessmen create your own create projects these projects there are projects that lack that are lacking but in different dimension this should be told to the government in the best interest of the regions the country is better governed when we listen to people listen to our local authorities and to conclude let me say that it was a pleasure to be able to speak before you i wouldn't have been able to do so in such an easy way that is as um um member of the c ds it's a pleasure to be able to help the party help the country and if my and if what i've just said means that we can move forward thank you very much thank you very much mr mayor uh strong strong voice as i mentioned in the very beginning you uh we as a epp invest our common money or european money uh in the forer people in the people and with the people uh so i hope that it is this event it is a proof that we would like to be in a constant uh discussion about how to invest this money with the local uh leaders with the local authorities and with the local societies uh and it is the the the main difference so i hope that maybe uh maybe portuguese government will hear uh us from this event and this will be the strong message take us as a people on board because you can change the world with other people uh so it is the the key issue right now i would like to open the floor to uh to all of you if you have any questions or our distinguished guests uh and i see right now uh our our special guest for m e p maria the carvalo and the floor is yours i don't know who can deliver the mic okay thank you very much it's more a comment than a question is a comment that there is as paul hanjela said no coordination between the recovery resilience plan and the regional funds but there is also no coordination especially in portugal between these funds and the innovation funds that mark macula said that is so important so these funds are managed in brussels uh for example the horizon europe but also the digital europe in the horizon europe we have 30 billion euros for partnerships between industry and enterprise and research and universities that target the emerging technologies bio new materials data to apply all that in industry and enterprises and uh i was reporter of that part of horizon europe and we have introduced in the regulation the possibility to do synergies between the these innovation funds and the recovery resilience plan so you can develop the technology financed by brussels directly in a network with univers and research centers and enterprises and after the pilot scale the demonstration to do it through the recovery or the the regional funds this possibility that is so important for our enterprises to do the transformation as an answer i've said today not is not enough to recover the industry is important to transform the industry in the enterprise so important all over europe especially in portugal we are not using these possibilities so is one comment and i would like that the government also listen to to that and put that in practice thank you very much thank you thank you very much for this comment and for another strong message to portuguese government if somebody would like to intervene marco marco um thank you i i just want to add to that because a lot of this slow motion kind of movie and innovation it happens to you that that the eu horizon research enormous good financing but it's targeted for something very specialized research and and it's always practically kind of not that straightforward at all serving the local level transformation and of course it could we could even talk now with maria cabriela and the others their director general so so that if we take just take madrid region what we heard isabel ioso saying here so i i know i've talked a lot with them and a lot of our Helsinki region people collaborate in concrete research with them if we take madrid lisbon Helsinki maybe one or two others who are very advanced in making these trade breakthrough innovations for societal transformation and write it down clearly that we have a proposal how to make this transformation in an accelerated speed to happen and that could be then financed through the horizon it meets with the criteria but if we have only the academic experts separately reviewing each of these big projects so then they will not serve what europe needs at the moment some can be used some money can be used on that kind of academic best expert research but some needs to be targeted for this transformation as well thank you thank you marco and as i don't see any comments from your side i would like to thank you thank you for all our guests thank you thank you thank you marco thank our presidents mr sosa mr carteros and mr sorry because i'm not good you know polish sounds quite similar but this is completely different different still language and of course mayor for us thank you very much and i right now i would like to give the lecture not the floor to zikvit murishan to closing remarks thank you look that thank you very much just to say that we have heard this morning what the vision of the epp of our mayors of our local regional elected leaders for the implementation of next generation eu is we want this to be implemented in a transparent way we want this to be implemented based on the priorities of the people with a strong involvement of local regional leaders we know time is short we know the law now says that money has to flow until 2026 this is why speed is important this is why cooperation is important and this is also what governments have to understand particularly the socialist governments of portugal and spain they have to understand that these are not money that they can use based on their political preferences but these are money from europe for the people of portugal for the people of spain it should be used based on their needs we should finance projects which have no chance to be financed otherwise we should create exactly the synergies that maria grassa was talking about so finance projects that have no chance to be financed otherwise but also finance projects which trigger more investments which trigger private investments so that we have synergies between next generation cohesion funds private private investments transparency is is important as well this is the vision of the epp and for successfully implementing this in portugal stand our two epp member parties from here from portugal the social democratic party psd which is led by luig montanego here with us and our christian democratic people's party cds pp led by nuno mellow they are both with us and they will now deliver their keynote addresses i think nuno first and then louise to conclude to deliver his important keynote speech nuno mellow please the floor is yours my dear sir philmore zane and you i want to welcome all the epp dear luig montanego president of the social democratic party partner and a permanent and this is life of all the european cities and also obviously all the mayors from the cds and the psd if you don't mind i will use the portuguese which is normal and we have to talk also for the people over there okay transmit who can transmit the the proper message so going to the portuguese yesterday yesterday colleagues from other countries that are participating at this conference were questioning um the topic that was mentioned yesterday and that are relating to pope francis coming to portugal i'm a catholic europe has a lot of our diff have different beliefs 80 percent of the portuguese are catholic and again i'm a catholic the problem had to do of of five million investment in an infrastructure used by the pope in the youth journeys which will bring to portugal more than one million young people from all over the world generating a lot more millions of revenue and since this infrastructure will be used later on in other initiatives i would like to say that i'm not under i'm not saying that this topic isn't important politics is also made up of such topic i would wish that this infrastructure could be cheaper than what i've just said notwithstanding what i like to say to our colleagues from different countries is that yesterday's news could have been others there could have been other news and sometimes uh and i would think even more significant more meaningful we could have been talking about 11 million years spent in the web so you know what it what the web summit is and not five million to welcome 71 000 visitors and not one million visitors during just a weekend and not six days as this will happen with pope francis coming to portugal pope francis is the pope he's not any other type of other reality or speak about 500 000 payment when a tenth of those five million at stake yesterday we could have spoken about paying 500 million one tenth of that value of that infrastructure paid just to one person paid to one person because she was a director of tap portuguese public airline that has received since 2016 3.2 billion euros of taxes from taxpayers not five million not five million three point two billion euros from the different taxpayers from our taxpayers the problem seems to be the cost of that infrastructure again it's i'm not saying that it shouldn't be as such but what should have been on the news yesterday and today and tomorrow what should be mentioned by the media outlet what should really be the news that is after one third of the time to apply the rrp program in portugal rrp only nine percent of the 16 billion euros of these funds are absolutely strategic and decisive for portugal were only executed not five million more than 16 billion out of which one third of the time only nine percent were implemented in my country so this is this is true the socialist ill treat the economy and it's not something they've been doing today it's always been as such every time the socialists rule the economy does not grow much or the debt increases so that it becomes unsustainable while i'm talking the common agricultural policy represents the largest share of the u budget and while i'm talking the socialist government has extinct the secretary of state for agriculture as it has removed that post the minister of the agriculture in portugal will that is will be together with the secretary for fisheries unbelievable and so the portuguese farmers would deserve a lot more this fundamental sector the portuguese economy would deserve a lot more the farmers in portugal deserve an explanation after having said this recently and speaking to the minister of cohesion zeminelle louise montgaigne and and and and paul rangel of this weak socialist government the president of the republic professor rebelle says that he was paying attention to the execution of this plan guaranteeing that he didn't want to see any flaws and what i'd like to say to the president of the republic is that there aren't many doubts about the disaster of how this plan was executed in terms of checking these different flaws on november the 11th and this was on so said on november 11 european commissioner for the economy apology in tilona after seeing downwards portugal's growth for next year has has already said there's no openness to negotiating the recovery deadline so at that pace we will not be able to execute at 100 the more than 16 billion euros in the rrp so and if anna let me refer to the fact that this plan marked by socialist dogma wasn't very well designed for portugal and this was brooched on by different mayors almost the entire funds of the rrp almost its entire is aimed at the public sector and practically nothing for the private sector in spite of the fact that in portugal it's the private sector that is the main driver in portugal it's the private sector again private sector that creates jobs and it's the private sector that generates wealth it's not the state state lives off the taxes charged to companies and to families in spite of not being well designed the rrp and even the small amounts for the private sector executed in very small amounts in portugal the portuguese entrepreneur and associate denounced that only 10 percent and figures are very important when we're speaking about billions of euros denounced that only 10 percent equivalent to 100 000 euros have reached the private sector and applications um were very uh were being approved very late and so the portuguese confederation for construction alerted to the risks of tenders being deserted because a lot of time was wasted a lot of time was wasted and the cost were a mismatch this adjusts it it's a unique opportunity it was a unique opportunity for portugal and to be able to understand the difference to bear in mind what i'm saying in spain concerning the uh the regarding this spainia puede and the neighboring country has received more than 45 percent of the amount to 69 billion euros that was allocated to it comparing then to the nine percent out of the 16 billion executed in spain comparing 40 60 percent for 69 billion euros executed in portugal so comparing these figures after wasting the opportunity to design a capable program facing being able to face the war economies what did the socialist government do the portuguese socialist government it kept the community funding incapable of executing and left to the private sectors left them with the taxes to pay while portugal and it's worthwhile to refer has uh uh c it rate which is quite high one of the highest in ocda we're speaking about 38 countries in the ocda this rich country as you can imagine this rich benefits quite a lot of europe and but has the highest c it rate because the socialist government think that the portuguese business men is have quite a lot more statue said socialism is quite good until the others money and there are no more socialists no more competent socialists like the ones in portugal more is competent and experienced so i'm going to conclude because i want to listen to luise i want to be very attentive uh when saying such neglect is so evident where on how these funds are being executed in portugal it's no uh no longer is at stake and i hope to know if they will pardon the government because this is unforgivable so president of the republic and this is i'm addressing the president of republic in these words i have no doubt whatsoever in in this neglect of executing the the rrp and joined to a political stability nine um members replaced a different institutional criminal cases honestly for us in the city for us cds the time is to dissolve parliament with elections in portugal and if it does happen the cds people's party will be ready long live cds the um psd and other parties epp parties well good afternoon once again welcome to all of you it's a big pleasure to be here with you and sharing experiences and perspective to the future and as you understand like nunu i also will speak in portuguese today so dear friends my dear nunu european uh members of parliament dear guests first of all i'd like to greet all of you that have participated in this event an important event for us an event of sharing experiences perspectives you know looking into the future looking into common ways we need to go forward in the eq i would like to thank especially to all the people responsible in municipalities and all stakeholders also the those that have come from other countries in the u and that have shared their perspectives and their opinions with us and very specifically to epp to the epp and uh thank the words that have been addressed to me and also to the members of the european parliament our members of parliament uh nunu malo is here as the president of cds pp and also a member of the european parliament he uh of course will uh not uh complain if i uh address very especially uh all the members of the psd in european parliament and uh zemina of renche we've had several events that value our participation within the epp and within the european parliament with uh worked uh with our delegation uh at the european parliament with our uh members of the national parliament we will have uh also an event of uh this nature in medira after one that we've held in the azores we've been present in all initiatives of the european uh popular uh party so this means that psd wants to be an active voice in europe and also within our political families so that we can in fact articulate policies that serve citizens institutions families and companies and then can actually show new uh ways for progress and social injustice and this has to do with our vocation of actually contributing to the reinforcing the strengthening of the capacity to intervene that we need to have at this european family we are not leaders of the government in portugal but we will lead the government on the uh uh medium run let me just tell you that objectively i was not going to speak about this right now but i was in the room when i heard uh about this decision of the portuguese government to actually to extinguish the um secretary of state for agriculture so i have what one could call a mixed feeling because this is on the one hand a demonstration of the devaluation the lack of respect that the government in portugal has for this important sector of our economy of our culture and if our identity which is agriculture it is a lack of respect a very important lack of respect and i can't find any uh parallel in the history of portugal why do i say mixed feeling well because quite honestly there is something new here not exactly surprise not only this lack of respect is uh goes together with many other examples but also we know that today the prime minister has a lot of difficulty of recreating quality politicians within uh it's his party and especially outside his party this uh difficulty i don't know it may be associated to the fact that nobody uh wanted to fill in uh you know to respond to the 36 questions of that questionnaire that the prime minister wants to actually um presented those to the newcomers to the government but he refuses to apply that same questionnaire to the current members of the government now this is bad news for portugal and bad news for the portuguese agriculture no doubt whatsoever on this this is something that materializes in added difficulties in our day-to-day life you know when it comes to policies that serve agriculture and national production at a time and we've seen several effects and several circumstances around the pandemic and it was during this period that here in portugal and all over europe we woke up to the need of having better production factors and of actually not being as dependent as we've been during the last years so it is precisely that's the time where europe and the country have seen this situation have identified this situation it is precisely this point in time were uh focused on investing that the government disinvests from the reality in the field of agriculture in this country now i believe that this conference that is targeted to the road to recovery a road to recovery that is associated to common financing policies such that has never existed in europe recovery and resilience is something that is not usual in europe we're speaking about financing facilities that are common to all countries that are there to actually overcome the situation after the pandemic and they are the highest expression of european solidarity that is something that is seen with with the collision funds but whereas collision funds are targeted to bridging the gap between more developed to less developed this program rrf is overarching and we should be having the same recovery experiences gains and added resilience all over europe at the same level and in the same way and as far as i'm concerned i mean this is a mistake that europe is actually making regarding this financing facility which is to uh letting member states member states to actually adopt strategies that do not serve or do not comply with the spirit with the idea behind this recovery and resilience facility portugal is an example of this what is it that has happened in portugal during the last seven years well we've had socialist governments we've had socialist governments that uh uh wanted to uh fight against the stigma that we had in portugal regarding uh unbalanced accounts those that cannot or are not capable of managing what belongs to all of us without generating situations as traumatic as the ones that we've uh had to live at the beginning of the last decade when we had the troika here with us uh we had to borrow money from the eu and from the imf so during the last seven years the socialist government decided to do away with this stigma uh that was overing its policy and wanted to um present uh balanced public accounts but one must say that balanced accounts of the socialist government are based especially on a tax burden which is maximum the taxes that portuguese citizens and companies pay nowadays have reached unprecedented levels minimum public investment this means that public services have less and less ways of actually serving or providing for the needs of people and an economy that grows much less than the economies of covision countries in portugal we had an accumulated accumulated growth between uh 16 2016 and 2021 and the situation has not changed despite of our growth and the accumulated growth since we have socialists in the government we've we grew less than half than uh average of the countries of european covision and many countries grew uh three or four full so what do these balanced accounts of the socialist party means taxes lack of growth and this is what has happened in portugal and this has all to do with the r r f uh with funding from europe and it is because this portuguese government has this management it has burned essential public investment and they have used this channel to all this financial uh that should be targeted to production to investment to businesses and also to families and both companies and families are suffering from a high rate of inflation that brings with it very high cost for the purchase of essential items we're speaking about food and we're speaking about production factors for companies that now have prices that were not indeed arisen so this is why we feel it is a mistake to waste so much funding that lies you know in front of us that is our money that is your money the money of the citizens of europe and that money should be translated into a higher quality of life a higher production capacity more competitiveness the creation of added value the decision that was made is rather problematic because as i said we have about uh 50 billion euro between the four billion the portugal 20 20 18.2 billion of the r r f of the 16.2 uh initial billion we've had an increment of 1.6 billion euro we've uh because we've had the worst performance of recovery in 2021 and we have yet another prerogative to help portugal's come out or leave this kind of situation and now we have portugal 23 as well one needs to say very clearly that this is in fact a very important landmark in the life of our country and why is that because one of the things that we have is the absence of any structural transformation there was no structural transformation whatsoever in our country if we try to see where portugal's retain what is it that europeans that follow the policies of governments of the member states what is it that they retain as transformation that has been executed by the government of the socialist party in a tv program somebody said uh about something else please tell me one please tell me one just one structural transformation one structural change that the socialist government has uh done uh or has promoted in the life of our country and we need to denounce these in our political struggle and we need to share this with our partners in the EU and the use of european funding should be even more important for portugal should we have these transformations we would have more public investment more funding channeled to public investment because the country would be uh would have a faster pace of development but this was not so to add to all this we have other aspects regarding the use of EU financing it is true that you know funding has been centralized the management of these funders of this funds has been centralized there has been a tremendous bureaucratic process and we need to see what will emerge during the next years as a result of this what is it that the portuguese government is doing right now i feel very much at ease and this is especially for our um guests i've been the president of pst for the last six months and i live one week per month in each region of the country literally and i've visited all the municipalities i've been in all the municipalities of the country and i've been listening to people i've been discussing together with the populations we are a party of people i've been listening to institutions to local powers everything that the government the portuguese government has not done uh in the scope of the design of the rf he has not heard people or uh municipalities as mentioned here before i've started to do this five months ago and this week the portuguese government started a similar program and it copied our actions i mean now they dedicate two days every month to visit the different municipalities some differences in the case of the government one member of the government actually visits one municipalities so do they do it faster but we've seen now what the government of portugal wants to do by imitating us and of course you know the imitating something is always worse than the original what the government is doing with the money of portuguese taxpayers and the funding that we get from urum is conducting a political campaign these visits are being used to let the portuguese government promise that they will do work or works public works they actually inaugurate certain works in fact they they actually have plagues of works that they would like to do but they have been there for 15 or more years and they have never actually started the work so they are not listening to people they are not asking for people involvement they are conducting a political campaign with our money and they are doing even worse they are traveling you know that they are visiting municipalities the projects that they have that are that they can actually fit into the rrf so that we do not lose the funding they are doing that with cost estimates that sometimes are far beyond the real cost of the work and they will obviously want to get these projects include them in the rrf the budget is 100 in the end it will cost 200 and the remaining 100 will be paid by you municipalities so the government is using this opportunity to actually conducting a political campaign and to overload the portuguese municipalities and this my dear friends is something that we need to denounce we need to debate this and the government needs to change the government it needs to change their policies because otherwise the government has the portuguese people need to change government and when we've started our office we want it and we still want to have you know this perspective that in a mature democracy where the government has a majority in the parliament the mandate is to has to be taken until the end now we want to contribute to the reinforcement of the position of the EPP we will have elections in our country and also all over europe as was said by Isabella Hughes regarding the community of Madrid and also for the central government in Spain and i would like to tell you that our calendar text will take us to september october 2026 and if it is changed you know that there is only one responsibility and that responsibility lies in the socialist government and i would like to conclude by saying the following we have some situations that we are not really happy with here in portugal and this has to do with using uping funding it is a national challenge a challenge for us politicians and for people that work in different stakeholders in portugal we have an impact of the repercussion of uping funding in the growth potential of our product that is below those countries that face similar difficulties such as great gracia uh and now uh romania it is an evidence and we are the country of the EU that has the highest dependency on european funders funding for investment we are not proud of this it may be a motive for satisfaction among socialists but we in the social democratic party we are not like that we want first of all to have funding from the u being used to create value to create a better economy we want to be at the top of europe with regards to the money that we allocate to investment to education to resilience and the sustainability of economic growth the circles that can actually impact in a more positive way the growth of our economy and the creation of wealth and we also want to uh we don't want to continue to be dependent from grants we receive from europe my dream for portugal is to be a net contributor to europe that is our destiny it's not to be at the tail of europe but to be at the forefront of europe and we are here to guarantee to you uh that with the policies of our political family those that are concerned with the life of uh families of economic agents those that actually generate wealth that those that use their capital and their effort we want to say that portugal has everything to be a country that does things as well or even better than others we want to overtake you that is our objective thank you Thank you all. Now we have a lunch. Thank you all. We have a lunch at the hotel.