EU Deadline Drives Porto's Rubi Line to €435m Overrun

Porto’s metro map is growing longer and so is the invoice. What began as a streamlined extension across the Douro will now require an extra €78.59 million, a late add-on that government planners blame on a crucial new maintenance base in Vila d’Este and on the tight EU N+3 timetable that forces Portugal to spend fast or send money back to Brussels.

A surprise bill lands in Porto

The expansion of the network—marketed locally as the Linha Rubi—was originally budgeted at €299 million under the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP). A May 2025 revision lifted that envelope to €351.98 million, yet even that proved insufficient once engineers insisted on a second depot. With inflation biting into concrete, steel and signalling, the total price tag now hovers around €435 million, portions of which will be picked up by the Environmental Fund and the national State Budget. Lisbon’s latest twist is to tap the Sustentável 2030 programme—an EU-backed fund already running hot—to cover the fresh gap, hoping that a quicker flow of Brussels cash will offset the heavier domestic share.

Why a second depot became non-negotiable

Porto’s sole workshop in Guifões is working near capacity after the arrival of new rolling stock. Engineers warn that relying on a single yard for inspections, cleaning and heavy repairs leaves the network vulnerable to even minor mishaps. The proposed Parque de Material e Oficinas (PMO) in Vila d’Este solves that chokepoint. Stretching almost 200 metres, the facility will shelter up to 60 carriages, feature three access tracks, an automated washing bay and dedicated parts warehouses. Metro do Porto says dual depots will slice downtime and keep a fleet of 22 new trainsets circulating on schedule once the Rubi corridor opens.

The Brussels stopwatch: N+3 pressure on Sustentável 2030

Redirecting money to Sustentável 2030 buys flexibility but piles on risk. Under the EU’s N+3 rule, funds committed in 2022 must be fully spent—or at least invoiced—by the end of 2025. Miss the mark and unused amounts revert to the European Commission. Government auditors already list Sustentável 2030 as the country’s most stressed operational programme. The Public Finance Council estimates that about 20 % of RRP-linked loans could remain unspent nationwide, turning every month of delay on the Rubi works into a possible budget claw-back.

What riders will notice by 2026

If deadlines hold, commuters should board purple-coloured trains along a 6.4 km stretch linking Casa da Música to Santo Ovídio, passing new stations at Campo Alegre, Soares dos Reis, Rotunda, Candal, Arrábida and Devesas. The architectural centrepiece is the slender Ponte D. Antónia Ferreira (Ferreirinha), reserved for metros, cyclists and pedestrians. Work on the bridge’s mid-river pylons is pencilled in for summer 2025, with test runs slated for 2027. Transport planners predict the corridor will siphon roughly 5.2 million car journeys off local roads each year, cutting around 17,400 tonnes of CO₂ from the Porto-Gaia conurbation.

The wider shuffle between grants and loans

Portugal’s metro overrun is not an outlier. Housing schemes, Lisbon’s Violet Line, and the Algarve desalination plant have all migrated from non-refundable grants to RRP loans after slippages threatened eligibility. Nationally, loan execution trails at roughly 40 %, making each transfer a wager on future governments’ appetite to repay. Officials argue that loans keep projects alive without swelling the deficit up-front; watchdogs counter that slow delivery could leave the country servicing debt for assets that arrive late—or never.

What happens next

Metro do Porto insists the Rubi Line will be operational, at least in phases, before the end of 2026. Construction teams are drilling the final tunnel sections beneath Vila Nova de Gaia, and the first six of the 22 carriages are due to roll off assembly lines next year. Failure to meet the 2026 target would force the Treasury either to top up the works from domestic coffers or to downscale the project. For millions of northern commuters—and for a government keen to showcase green mobility before the next election—the stakes could hardly be higher.