Rui Moreira fears that Portugal 2030 and the Resilience Plan serve to “plug holes”
The socialist president Ode Patrício exchanges the various chambers of the Chamber during a session of the Municipal Assembly
The mayor of Porto, Rui Moreira, said he feared that the Portugal 2030 financing program and the funds from the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) would serve to “plug holes”.
“I fear that Portugal 2030 is to fill the ‘pseudodecentralization’ hole that you [o PS] im imposing on the Portuguese”, said the mayor, during a session of the Municipal Assembly of Porto, on Thursday night.
Rui Moreira responds to socialist deputy Odete Patrício, who had questioned the mayor about the operational program, during the debate on the municipality’s 2021 accounts.
He also stated that “the PRR also serves to plug holes”, reiterating that the European funding line, when it comes to culture, “is a disgrace”.
Rui Moreira also attacked the PS in relation to the decentralization of competences. The mayor said that socialists “know the numbers very well” and “they know what is at stake – it is a jettison of skills”.
“A year from now, when we are here looking at the accounts, we will see what the municipality has actually managed to do. Not what he wanted, he had to do what he was ordered, ordered, by the Government, in things like asbestos in schools, in a city like ours where schools no longer had asbestos, what they transfer to us is schools with asbestos. A year from now, yes, it will be the government that will be judged”, this government.
Optoudete chose to replicate national policies “not to replicate national policies” with regard to the municipality’s accounts only.
Moreira’s fabrics have critical points in the process of decentralization of competences, having even taken to the executive a proposal to leave the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities, which was approved on 19 April.
The process of downloading skills in more than 20 areas of the Central Administration for the municipalities has been going on since 2019.
A definitive and mandatory download of skills in the areas of Education, Health and Social Action for the municipalities was scheduled for April this year, after several postponements.
On February 3, the Government requests the possibility of extending the deadline for municipalities until January 1, 2023 to promote education for Action, the Action of Competencies.
On March 25, the Porto City Council filed a precautionary measure to stop decentralization in the areas of education and health.
On April 4, the councilor for Education of the Porto Chamber, Fernando Paulo, said that the measure was accepted, but without suspensive effects, which led the municipality to “accommodate” the powers.