The environmental association Zero today lamented the absence of Environment as a strategic area in the State Budget for 2027 (OE2027), a proposal that “wastes the opportunity to accelerate the ecological transition”.
One day after the Government presented the OE2027 proposal, the association issued a statement with a negative reading of the choices for the area of the ministry led by Maria da Graça Carvalho, stating that the Government, with the fiscal margin it has, instead of strengthening investment in the ecological transition gives priority to reducing some taxes.
From Zero’s point of view, the Government treats the environment as an area that should self-finance, and responds to climate risk by repairing damage and strengthening the fight against wildfires, instead of investing in prevention and restoration.
Zero believes that the Government seems to be “planning the stagnation of the sector until the end of the decade”, in light of the figures announced for Environment and Energy (in the Multiannual Public Expenditure Framework).
Zero also conducts an assessment of OE2027 by area, one of them being waste, about which “little or nothing” is said. And once again, it accuses that there was a lack of courage to pass the cost of non-recycled plastic packaging onto those who place these packages on the market. Such a move would mean that packagers would pay the cost rather than taxpayers.
In water resources there is no reference to the revision of the Water Resources Tax, nor to the oversight of illegal withdrawals nor to the monitoring of aquifers.
And in the territory and nature conservation area there is no data on the continuity of the projects for the primary network of fuel-management strips and for landscape transformation. In the classification of expenditures associated with “green budgeting”, about 47% of the funds marked as adaptation to climate change are allocated to the recovery from the damages of storm Kristin.
Zero acknowledges that it is necessary to repair damage, but it recalls that “the prevention of future catastrophes cannot be relegated to a second plan”.
As for the climate, energy and mobility sector, the latter one of the most highlighted in the Government’s document, Zero says there is a lack of a “clear trajectory” to phase out fossil fuel subsidies by 2030, in accordance with the Climate Bases Law.
It also considers that the maintenance of support for gas in electricity production is “particularly harmful”. In addition, there is a lack of a specific and robust allocation for electric vehicles and for the corresponding charging and storage infrastructures.
