One of the conclusions in the report “O Estado da Nação e as Políticas Públicas 2025,” released by ISCTE — University Institute of Lisbon, emphasizes that longer municipal cycles yield better results compared to “micro governmental cycles.”
The report’s coordinator, Pedro Adão e Silva, states that a culture of planning and evaluation requires “a lengthy period” and depends on a maturation process “incompatible with short political cycles, based on a succession of structural reforms.”
The author notes that, faced with “significant political fragmentation” in parliament and successive unstable micro government cycles, local and regional politics contrast by offering longer cycles “based on stable commitments and leaders.”
Additionally, a setback is noted in the devolution process of powers from the central State to the regional coordination and development commissions (CCDRs): the appointment of CCDR vice-presidents by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Sea.
“We may be returning to a model of vertical deconcentration, in which the management bodies of the CCDRs were inseparable from their integration into the hierarchical structure of Central Administration and, until very recently, with all their superiors being appointed by the Government,” reads the introduction to the work, consisting of 16 essays, included in a book presented today.
Pedro Adão e Silva, president of the Institute for Public and Social Policies (IPPS) at ISCTE, also highlights the economic and demographic dualism between territories with infrastructures, equipment, and services and those deprived of economic and administrative structures.
“Not only have the vast majority of low-density territories fallen irreparably further behind, but this reality coexists with a framework in which multidimensional inequalities accumulate in metropolitan areas,” the document emphasizes.
The study’s authors also note that “significant” financial centralization persists.
“The expenditures of municipalities, as a percentage of total public expenditures, are about half of the European average, which by itself should lead to a revision of the normative framework,” they argue.
