The warning came this week from Brussels: Portugal has two months to apply European air quality legislation. According to the European Commission, the country has not “fulfilled its obligations” with regard to European laws and the air is more polluted than it should be. If the Government does not take a position within 60 days, then the European Commission will proceed to the Court of Justice of the European Union. This position, however, seems to clash with the recent statements by European Commissioner Elisa Ferreira, which set Portugal as an example to follow in environmental matters – one of the justifications invoked, in fact, for the decrease in the amounts received by Portugal from European cohesion funds , contrary to what happened with other Member States.
The country well placed for the purpose of receiving cohesion funds, this week was described differently by the European Commission: “The system must reliably measure, inform the public and communicate the severity of air pollution”. “The limit values for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) are exceeded in several areas, while the available data show the ineffectiveness of the measures taken to reduce air pollution,” added an official source.
In December, Elisa Ferreira praised Portuguese environmental policies regarding the new Fund for a Just Transition. To the DN, Elisa Ferreira referred that «Portugal is well situated», adding that the country «already has a possibility – unlike other countries – of using a lot of renewable energy, a lot of solar water, energy removed from the tides, so it already makes the windmills”.
Regarding the new European fund – which supports decarbonisation in areas that depend most on coal -, Portugal will only keep 1% of the total of 7.5 billion euros available. In other words, only 79 million euros are foreseen for Portugal, leaving the country on the list of those receiving the least. The Government did not come up with any draft application and preferred to wait for the European Commission’s proposal.
Even though Elisa Ferreira has publicly defended Portugal’s decisions, SOL knows that her team will have been surprised by the lack of competing projects.
In response to the European Commission’s warning, the Ministry of the Environment only informed that it will await information from the European Commission “to find out its content”. And it listed a series of measures that it has implemented in this area recently. «Portugal has an air quality monitoring network whose data are available online and in real time», wrote the ministry of João Pedro Matos Fernandes.
Questioned this Friday by the SOL about the applications, the guardianship did not send any clarification until the closing time.
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