Portugal runs the risk of having to return European funds because of a delay
The General-General of Cultural Heritage warned Parliament that delays in community funds can be returned to the Director of 1.93 million euros of works from community funds.
João Carlos stressed that “the tasks of the Saints [se] pay”, after being questioned several times about the possibility of making new changes.
“We are already in the second review of the project and I would like to say that this contract, which was awarded for 3,873,803 euros, has funding from Portugal 2020 […]but we hardly have a delay in the completion of the works and therefore significant, this for the funds stated is very significant to explain and we run the serious risk of having a return of 1,936 million euros”, the official.
According to Carlos Santos, “only changes in the financial rebalance of the work (i.e., delay in the work, payment of extra work, extra archeology, etc.) already [vão] in 2.2 million euros that [se teve] to negotiate with the contractor”, the latter being the subject of a lawsuit in court.
“We can be constantly doing what we are looking for the most to be protected, what we don’t want to stop looking for more, what we don’t want to stop looking for”.
The deputies of the parliamentary committee for Culture will, on October 20, make a working visit to the works of the Cathedral of Lisbon.
The works in the Lisbon Cathedral celebrated in the 80s
The works in the cloister of the Cathedral of Lisbon started in the 1980swith the first excavations, and one of the difficulties was the discovery of successive archaeological layers that the stratigraphic analysis did not lead to a previous forecast, over the years, and to the elaboration of different projects for the rehabilitation of the site.
The director-general of Cultural Heritage, in a conference in the third of last year, stated that the second review of the project had in November reconcile “the best of two worlds”, which allowed “one more than what was foreseen, from the archaeologists”, and at the make the initial “problem” of the proposal “a solution”.
The excavations disclosed Roman, Islamic and medieval Christian structuresafter the city’s conquest in 1147, namely traces of streets, tanks, as well as an aljama mosque and a wall with medieval graffiti.