The President of the Regional Delegation of the Order of Economists, Camilo Moniz, pointed out the day before yesterday what he considered to be the solution to a better relationship in the transfer of EU funds between the Government of the Azores and regional entrepreneurs: “communication”.
Entrepreneurs Romão Brás and Helga Barcelos, both in their own way, pointed out some of the problems that lead to the slowness with which EU funds reach companies and, in some cases, haven’t even reached them yet. They called for changes for the next Financial Framework 2028/2034.
The two businessmen spoke on the panel “Strategies for the Azores in the Next Community Support Framework” at the conference “The Challenges of the European Union and the Financial Framework 2028-2030.”
In Camilo Moniz’s opinion, “in general, the incentives are well designed, but there is a communication problem between the European, national and regional authorities and the way the programs are operationalized.”
“What was said here, both by Helga and Romão, is exactly that the community programs often exist, but between applying for the program, being analyzed, receiving the answer, being implemented, being digitized and being paid, there are often distortions here that pose many difficulties and cause many investments not to be supported, not to be carried out,” said Camilo Moniz.
For this reason, one of the “great challenges” facing the next Financial Framework 2028-2030 is “greater communication, greater mutual help between the decision-making levels (…) between national and regional experts, so that they can talk about the same rules.”
“What happens,” he said, is that ”when we talk to the technicians, who have a great responsibility in analyzing the applications, they are trying to interpret the regulations and this interpretation puts a bottleneck in the project…”
“It’s as if the three levels of analysis of project applications are not all in line. Therefore, training, understanding, knowledge between the various levels is fundamental and we think there should be much more training in this area,” he said.

The cost-opportunity of projects

Camilo Moniz then addressed the results of the projects carried out with EU funds. “I don’t know if you’ve had the chance to see some information that came out this month about the investment made with Alqueva. It was announced that this year, finally, the investment with Alqueva was paid off.”
Alqueva “was one of the biggest investments made at the time, it was completed perhaps ten years ago. The results have been produced over the years and we can see that the results of that investment have paid off.”
“We have to understand that there is always a cost-opportunity of the project,” from the moment it is presented, and then analyzed and approved to be carried out without losing the opportunity of the investment. Then, check the results.
According to the President of the Regional Delegation of the Order of Economists, “it would be very important for this next financial framework (2028-2034) to have an evaluation component for public and private investments that could be followed up by monitoring throughout the project’s lifetime.”
“We think it’s essential that this analysis of the benefits between public and private investments is carried out…” he added.
Camilo Moniz has “no doubt that the Azorean economy” has grown significantly. I’m fully aware of the great evolution that our country and our region have had, but there’s no doubt that we will be under increasing pressure to reflect on this. More and more pressure. The difficulties we will face shortly are debt and employment issues. We know that at the moment, in the country and region, we have a record level of employment. We’ve never had so many people working, but the private sector is the great engine of this employment growth.”
“Therefore, this issue between the public and private sectors has to be increasingly controlled in terms of the revenue dispute that the 2028-2034 financial framework will bring us,” he added.

The lever is agro-industry

Duarte Pimentel, CEO of Terinov, spoke about the upcoming EU funds and the Azores. First of all, remember that 2028 “is just around the corner”—it’s April 2025.
Until now, the Azores “have been major beneficiaries of EU funds,” but according to Duarte Pimentel, “they will no longer be for a number of reasons. I’m Azorean, so I believe in the fullness of the region, in the region’s market.”
Terinov’s CEO drew attention to the European Union’s new priorities. “There are going to be overall priorities, which mean that there will be a lot of important funding in areas that, unfortunately, the Azores will not be included in.

It will be difficult for us to enter the chains of what Europe really is, not only because we don’t have the scale, we don’t have the industrial infrastructure to respond,” particularly in the area of arms, defense and security.
Duarte Pimentel expressed concern about the issue of retaining talent and the ability to retain competent Azoreans and non-Azoreans in the region. Because I understand that we can be discussing all this, demographic winter is approaching, and without people, we do nothing. So I think this is the first pillar.”
In this context, the Terinov director praised the work of the Regional Directorate for Science, Innovation, and Development, which “has done a very good job in terms of the region’s intelligent solution strategies.”
In his opinion, the leverage of the Azores lies in the agro-industry. “Very much in terms of plant and animal biotechnology structures, but also in terms of agriculture. This is what makes agri-business competitive.”
He says, “we can’t be worried about supply chains where the product is no longer differentiating and can no longer be positioned competitively.”
On the other hand, he considered that areas such as space and health are “important, but difficult to bring closer to people. These are areas that require a lot of technological capacity, a lot of human capacity and, essentially, a lot of physical capacity. And with the choices that the European Union is going to have to make, I don’t know if it’s viable and, from an economic point of view, sustainable. People will again have to specialize in order to get to the negotiating table…”

Business cases

During the debate, businessman Romão Braz from the Finançor Group spoke of creativity and innovation as a “subject that is taken very seriously internally, and which is something we always try to substantiate. Innovation has various levels of complexity and investment.”
“And our most innovative project is aquaculture. It’s the most innovative project because we’re trying to do things that are practically unique in the world,” she said.
Businesswoman Helga Barcelos said that the Barcelos business group “works a lot with the issue of closed cycles and this is, in fact, a reinvention. From the meadow to the plate, we’ve managed to master the chain, to understand where we can or can’t gain some more efficiency, some more productivity to try to create value for the end consumer and that’s what we all have to do.”

The excesses of tourism and the space the Azores still have

The President of the Azores Regional Delegation of the Order of Economists, Camilo Moniz, drew attention to the origin of the funds. We can see that 55% are the region’s own funds, 20% are state transfers, and 23% or 24% are transfers from the European Union. So this shows how important EU funds are for us.”
“I’d also like to make a quick note so that young managers in particular can understand the extent to which the Azores are often dependent on external funds. The year the United States stopped paying for the Lajes Base, they stopped paying rent on Lajes, and that rent was 30% of the regional budget.”
“And so,” he continued, ”we will always be a very dependent region. It’s extremely difficult for us to increase our own revenue capacity.”
Camilo Moniz then introduced the issue of tourism into the debate. “I was recently on the island of Fernando de Noronha. It’s a small island near Recife, and on the island of Fernando de Noronha, which is about 30 km², 6,000 people live, there’s a limit of 500 tourists a day, and every tourist who lands on Noronha pays 80 euros. They pay for trails. For someone to live on Noronha Island, they have to have a job.
“This is to say,” he said, that, in tourism terms, ‘we’re entering a period in which, in two, three, four, five years, we could have serious problems if we don’t look at the sustainability of tourism in the Azores. Carrying capacity: We need to know the carrying capacity of each island. We need to know the maximum tourist capacity for each island. We need to know the maximum vehicle capacity on each island. And so far, we’re all very satisfied. Most everyone here has some connection to tourism, don’t they? And tourism is a good thing. So I think it should also be a concern for all of us to look to the future. Because the nightmare is often just around the corner from paradise.”
Camilo Moniz got a response from businessman Romão Braz: “While I agree that we have a great dependence on external sources for our budget, we have to dream of the day when we have to achieve self-sufficiency in terms of the economy, because I think it’s obligatory. This is a dream I have (…) I want to have the right to dream about it, and the dream commands life.”
Concerning tourism, Romão Braz said, “we have to be cautious about certain things, because I’m comfortable talking about it, because it’s what I love. Other fellow businessmen thought I was wrong when I said I was in favor of the tourist tax and I am and I still am. We have to charge it and I even think we can increase the amount. Now, we can’t wave this bogeyman that we’ve now seen the nightmare. Just compare it to other destinations. Let’s compare Madeira with others. And we’ll see that the Azores can still handle a lot.”

Azorean capacities returning

Duarte Pimentel, Director of Terinov, also believes “that we should accommodate a lot more.” He talked about human resources: “Nowadays, I see a generation, on average aged between 32/33, of highly qualified people who have returned home. It’s not easy.”
“If you ask me: is there room for 200 aerospace engineers? There isn’t. But maybe there’s room for 10. And it’s 10 that make the difference. Is there room for 200 biochemical engineers? There isn’t. But maybe there’s room for 15,” he said.
“We really have to look inwards. We have to understand that, when it comes to European projects, when it comes to investment priorities, we have to be more aggregated,” said Duarte Pimentel.

Frederico Figueiredo is a journalist for the newspaper Correio dos Açores-Natalino Vivieiros, director.

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Media Alliance) at California State University, Fresno, PBBI thanks Luso Financial for sponsoring NOVIDADES.