Government wants to end prior inspection by the TdC of all contracts with European funds

The proposal provides that the Court of Auditors will only analyze contracts in subsequent inspections and only when the value exceeds R$10 million.

The Government presented in Parliament a bill that profoundly changes the Court of Auditors’ inspection regime, providing for the elimination of the prior visa for all contracts financed by European fundsregardless of its value.

The initiative, approved by the Council of Ministers and sent urgently to the Assembly of the Republic, goes beyond the general regime proposed for public expenditure. In this case, the Executive intends to exempt from prior visa contracts worth up to R$10 millionmaintaining the obligation above this amount only under certain conditions, namely when entities do not have robust internal control mechanisms.

However, according to , in the specific case of European funds, the proposal completely eliminates this requirement. All contracts financed by community funds no longer undergo prior screening by the Court of Auditors, with only communication being mandatory for subsequent inspection in cases worth more than R$10 million.

Currently, these expenses already benefit from a special regime, which allows the execution of contracts before the Court’s decision, although with the possibility of suspension if serious irregularities are detected. With the new proposal, this model is revoked and replaced by a system with even less supervision.

The Government justifies the changes with the need to accelerate the execution of European funds and reduce bureaucratic obstacles and speed up public investments. The measure comes in a context in which Portugal faces demanding deadlines for the application of community funds and risks losing PRR funds due to delays in execution.

The proposal also includes changes to the sanctioning regime applicable to public managers. Although they continue to be subject to fines and the obligation to replace losses caused to the public treasury, accountability now depends on more demanding criteria. The objective is concentrate sanctions on more serious casesavoiding automatic penalties for irregularities of a purely procedural nature.

The proposal now goes to parliamentary debate.