Lisbon, May 28, 2025 (Lusa) - The president of the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities (ANMP) has called on the government that takes office after the final results of the 18 May legislative election are known to remain open, willing and eager to deepen the process of decentralising powers and responsibilities to local authorities.
"We've made a lot of progress, but the process is halfway through, it's not finished," Luísa Salgueiro warned in a speech at a forum on local government, held today at Lisbon's Iscte university institute. "We've made a lot of progress, especially in the three areas - education, social action and health - but we need to deepen it and move on to other areas."
People's expectations must not be dashed, she said, referring to the results of a study presented during the meeting which indicates that most citizens have more confidence in their local authorities than in the central administration.
Salgueiro also defended the need for a new local finance law, which was already being prepared in negotiations with previous governments, to ensure that the process of decentralising competences does not have a negative financial impact on local authorities and that they have clear and objective funding that does not depend annually on the goodwill expressed in the state budget.
"From the outset, this neutrality [of the financing of transferred powers] is guaranteed," she said. "However, as these responsibilities are developed and exercised, the local authorities identify needs that were not foreseen, and so we have more expenditure."
Salgueiro also pointed out that another of the challenges of decentralisation relates to a shortage of qualified workers in local administration and problems of scale in many municipalities, especially the smaller ones, which was visible in the application of funds from the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) for spending post-pandemic recovery funds from the European Union.
"There were applications and resources that were lost due to a lack of technical capacity," she said.
She also pointed out that many of the larger municipalities claim "more responsibilities than have been transferred to them, particularly in the areas of education and health," but that ANMP has warned that "this possibility would increase asymmetries, because few municipalities would be able to hire doctors or teachers within the current financial framework.
"We can't go ahead with a decentralisation process that biases the country and accentuates asymmetries," she stressed.
Salgueiro also emphasised that, in addition to education, social action and health, "there are many other responsibilities that are still not sufficiently addressed" such as in the areas of heritage, culture and infrastructure.
The study ‘Os portugueses, a desconcentração e a descentralização das políticas públicas' (The Portuguese, deconcentration and decentralisation of public policies) was presented on Wednesday in Lisbon at the Public Policy Forum 2025 by Pedro Adão e Silva, the president of the Institute for Public and Social Policies at Iscte - University Institute of Lisbon, and a former government minister.
According to the study, most citizens recognise that there have been improvements in living conditions in their municipality in recent years and take the view that local authorities are the level that best manages to develop public policies.
The North and Centre are where the largest shares of respondents consider that there have been improvements, at 44% in both regions, followed by the Algarve (40%) and Lisbon and the Tagus Valley (35%).
The Alentejo region is where respondents are less enthusiastic, with only 28% feeling that their municipalities have improved.
Respondents also revealed that they had "little knowledge of the process of decentralising public policies" - although the majority advocated more transfers of responsibilities to local authorities.
RCS/ARO // ARO.
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