Fernando Ruas says that Portugal urgently needs a regionalization process and uses an OECD report as an example
In the National Meeting, which must be presently territorial, “In the meeting of the meeting, which is in our territory, more and more needing a process of alerting the region, of being present for this territory, needing a process that more be a regional alert process, that is, from Saturday, at a time, requiring a regional process”.
Opening the debate on ongoing funding and decentralization of competences, the mayor of Viseu and former leader of the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities (ANMP) stressed that the country, even without regionalization, is more developed, but also “more unfair and asymmetrical”.
For the country to move forward more cohesively, the PSD mayor argues that only the principle of subsidiarity can “reinforce the effective sharing of power” between the State and the Intermunicipal Communities and municipalities.
Opening the debate, in which the ANMP leader, Luísa Salgueiro, and the president of the Association’s Congressional Bureau, Carlos Moedas, participated, the PSD mayor stressed that he had no doubts about the governance of common interests “is better achieved” as they approach As an example, he advances with the decentralization process still to be closed, stating that the municipalities do not accept more competences without more resources, nor do they accept mere transfers of tasks with “recognized deficits in financing and functioning”.
“It is not possible once again for the local councilors to solve the structural problems that the Central State is responsible for solving”, he warned, noting that many of the concerns of the ANMP which he presided over between 2002 and 2014 “are in all the similar ones that today me”.
Fernando Ruas a recent study by the OECD on the relationship between citizens and institutions: “They trust the mayors of approximation more than in national governments”. The other conclusion is that the City Council “comes right after the Police in terms of citizens’ trust”, and only then do the courts, governments and parties appear.
Eight years after returning to the presidency of the Viseu Chamber, however, there was a big difference in the reality of the time: “Since it is current and growing in the autar, which we cannot accept”. The blame, according to the social democrat, may be due to the fact that everything is normalized, limiting the “management capacity, the power of initiative and creativity” of the mayors. “We must insist that the most relevant decisions can be participated by those in the most trusted citizens”.
Ruas also warned of the difficult moment that municipal governance is going through inflation, with an impact on the good management of public funds and decentralization, a restriction that requires the union of municipalities in “the interests of all”.
During the morning, the municipalities that were not promoted by the ANMP will take a look at the management and local situation within the scope of the State budget for 2023, as well as the Recovery and Resilience Plan, the Local Finance Law and the PT 2020 Community Programs and PT 2030.
In the afternoon, there will be a balance-debate on the decentralization of competences to the municipalities, a meeting that will be attended by Ana Abrunhosa, minister of Cohesion.