“87.2% of works have been completed or are underway, and our goal is to execute 100% by the end of the PRR [Recovery and Resilience Plan],” said the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Margarida Balseiro Lopes, on the sidelines of the second edition of the Culture Forum, which took place in Porto.
According to the monitoring report of 14 January, consulted by Lusa, the Culture component has €346 million contracted — representing the total amount of the measure — and 42% of payments already made.
The document also indicates that 7% of the funds are “in transit to intermediate beneficiaries”.
These figures show an acceleration compared to March 2025, when the level of payments stood at 28%, a scenario that led the National Monitoring Committee of the PRR to classify the state of the Culture component as “critical”.
At the time, the commission warned of the high complexity and volume of interventions and recommended that the work included in the 10th payment request be completed in the second quarter of 2026.
In September, Margarida Balseiro Lopes assured that daily monitoring of the projects by the public institute Património Cultural (Cultural Heritage) had enabled the schedule to be met.
At the time, during a visit to the works at the Jerónimos Monastery and the National Archaeology Museum, both in Lisbon, the Minister of Culture assured that the PRR in the area of Culture would be implemented “100%”, particularly in Cultural Heritage, which provides for interventions in museums, monuments, palaces and national theatres throughout the country.
In the culture area, measure C4 has a total budget of €346 million, including €102.39 million for cultural networks and the digital transition.
Among the 85 interventions planned are works at the Jerónimos Monastery, the National Archaeology Museum, the National Museum of Ancient Art, and national theatres.
The plan also covers monuments such as the Convent of Christ (Tomar), the Monastery of Batalha, the Monastery of Tibães (Braga) and the creation of the National Sound Archive in Mafra.
The PRR is a European-wide financing mechanism to support structural reforms in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.