The chairman of the Algarve Coordination and Regional Development Commission (CCDR) defended this Friday the need to be assured more financing in community programs, to achieve structuring works that ensure water supply in the region.
José Apolinário thus reaches the Government’s decision to propose to Brussels the reprogramming of the financing of some projects provided for in the Plan of Recovery and Resilience (PRR) and Portugal2030 (PT2030), removing from the PRR the financing of the Algarve derinizer’s work.
According to a joint statement from the Ministry of Environment and Energy and the Office of the Assistant Minister and Territorial Cohesion released this Friday, the reprogramming aims to reduce the risk of breach of the plan objectives and to avoid the loss of funds.
For the Algarve CCDR President, it is “a natural decision, for the sake of deadlines”, as some works provided for in the PRR cannot be performed and completed within the expected period and, therefore, “have to move to o ”.
“What is important is that in this scheme of communicating vessels, between what is done in PRR and what goes on to Portugal2030, the region has more investment for water, whether in the case of the desalinizing and water drinking, Pomarão, Be it for storage, ”said the president of CCDR of the Algarve.
In the government statement, it is stated that the executive “decided to propose to the European Commission the transfer of financing from the projects of the Algarve desalinizing and the Pomarão water taking, in Guadiana, initially provided for in the PRR, for the program Climate Action and Sustainability ( Sustainable 2030) ”.
This transfer thus includes in the framework of the reprogramming of the Funds PRR and Portugal 2030 announced, in which the sustainable 2030 is integrated, and is still in the process of submission to Brussels.
The executive argues that the decision to reprogram funds brings “several advantages”, such as “the increase in the reimbursement of community financing to the projects, which could reach 85%, the extension in two years of the deadline for the execution of the works and a greater Flexibility in management ”.
The contract for the construction and exploitation of the future desalinizing of the Algarve, budgeted at 108 million euros and whose initial construction period was the end of 2026, was signed last October.
The Algarve region has suffered, over the past few years, prolonged drought cycles associated with a water scarcity already considered structural, resulting in a decrease in water volumes stored in the various available origins.
The infrastructure will have as its initial capacity 16 million cubic meters (M3), but the company is projecting it to have the capacity to treat up to three times more than this volume, or up to 24 million m3 of water.
The project of building a desalinizing in the municipality of Albufeira, in the district of Faro, is one of the response measures that affects the southernmost region of mainland Portugal integrated into a package of measures launched by the previous government.
Another expected measures is the capture of surface water in the estuarine zone of the Guadiana River, in the village of the village of Mesquita, the amount of Pomarão, in the municipality of Mértola (Beja), and the construction of a conduct to Odeleite Albufeira, in Castro Marim municipality (Faro).
Portugal and Spain established, during the 35th Spanish Luso Summit, held at the end of October in Faro, which, in reinforcing the water supply to the Algarve, the capture in the Pomar will have a maximum annual volume of 30 cubic hectimeters.
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