Brussels, 03/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - Portugal has become the fourth member state to have sent the European Commission its official partnership agreement proposal. Once signed, the document will seal structural fund investment strategies for the 2014-2020 financial programming period, linking the country to the European Commission. Miguel Poiares Maduro, the Portuguese minister for regional development, was in Brussels on 31 January personally to hand in the draft partnership agreement to the European commissioner for regional development, Johannes Hahn. The commissioner described the substantial dossier, as being “very promising” and said that he would scrutinise it more closely with his services so that the agreement could be concluded “as soon as possible”. The commissioner, however, insisted that what counted was not the speed with which it is concluded but rather the quality of the agreement. The main lines in the proposals are not a total unknown to the European Commission, which has already discussed and negotiated different investment strategies for European Structural Funds over the past year. The commissioner said that the discussions so far appeared to be going in the right direction but that he still expected more detailed information about the investment strategies for transport and SMEs. The commissioner stressed, further, that investment strategies are particularly important to Portugal because European subsidies from the cohesion policy account for a large part of Portugal's public funding over practically an entire decade (seven-year cycle, with three additional years for the continuation of projects). (MD/transl.fl)