“There’s really about 11 million euros here that we weren’t able to take advantage of at all,” admitted Alexandre Gaudêncio, from the Association of Municipalities of the Autonomous Region of the Azores (AMRAA), in a statement to Lusa, lamenting the excessive bureaucracy imposed on municipalities wishing to apply for the program.

The 19 municipalities in the Azores had around 160 million euros of EU funds at their disposal in the financing program that is now ending. Still, according to AMRAA, the municipalities could not take advantage of all the European support due to excessive bureaucracy.

“At the end of the day, the municipalities were cheated out of what would have been a viable expectation, due to bureaucracy that did nothing to help them achieve a higher level of implementation,” said Alexandre Gaudêncio, who hopes that the 11 million euros not yet used will not have to be returned to Brussels.

However, Nuno Melo Alves, regional director for Planning and Structural Funds, pointed out that the PO2020 accounts have not yet been closed and that until February 2024, eligible expenses submitted by the municipalities will still be paid.

“In January and February 2024, until the accounting and formal closure of the program, we will continue to process and pay expenditure and, therefore, I can’t say whether the remainder, these 10 or 11 million euros, will be fully used by the municipalities or whether there will be any slippage,” he stressed.

The man responsible for managing EU funds in the archipelago also recalled that it was possible to reallocate around four million euros to some municipalities in the Azores out of a total of 15 million EU funds that were still available but which could no longer be used by some municipalities that had already exceeded their funding capacity.

“There was a sum of four million euros that wasn’t used in the applications for which it was earmarked, because in some cases there were withdrawals, in other cases there were reformulations of the applications and investments that couldn’t be made by the municipalities in good time,” explained Nuno Melo Alves.

Despite these setbacks, the regional director for Planning and Structural Funds believes it is still possible to achieve a percentage close to 100% in the use of EU funds by the Azores to avoid the region having to return money to the European Union.

In Açoriano Oriental, Rui Paiva-director, from the LUSA news service

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Cultures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Media Alliance)  at California State University, Fresno–PBBI thanks the sponsorship of the Luso-American Development Foundation from Lisbon, Portugal (FLAD)