Portugal defends implementation of EU refugee support program

The Portuguese government on Wednesday refuted the accusation by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) that the southern European country had failed to implement the European Refugee Fund till July 2018.

The government clarified that there was no loss of funding allocated to Portugal in the national program of the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF), adding that the remaining funds are still managed by the government.

An auditing document of the ECA, the "financial watchdog" of the European Union (EU), said that the European Commission had threatened to withdraw funding to the program in 2018 because of the low execution rate - a loss of 16.7 million euros for Portugal, Portuguese Lusa News Agency reported.

According to the ECA, the executed amount of the fund -- 11.6 million euros -- in July 2018 accounted for approximately 25.3 percent of the approved total of 45.8 million euros.

The offices of the minister of internal administration and the minister of administrative modernization explained in a joint statement that "the implementation of the current financial framework has been delayed for approximately two years" due to the late approval by the European Commission of AMIF's regulations and Community instruments.

"The approval rate so far is 83 percent of the funds allocated to Portugal, and 41 percent of the total funding has already been paid," said the statement, quoted by Lusa.

The ministries stressed that "there was no loss of funding allocated to Portugal," pointing out that the fund remains under the management of the government and there was no refund to the EU.

AMIF is a financial instrument for the period 2014 to 2020, which supports national and EU initiatives that promote the efficient management of migration flows and the implementation, strengthening and development of a common EU approach to asylum and immigration.

The funds were set up to deal with "the unprecedented number of people entering Europe irregularly and the need to restore orderly border management on the Mediterranean route from 2015-2016," said the document.