The outgoing mayor, in his speech at the Municipal Medals 2025 ceremony, offered reflections on the future shaped by the upcoming October elections, suggesting that the city may “continue to have a vibrant, diverse, and transversal culture, accessible to all but disruptive and inspiring, or it may regress to a coarse and simplistic vocation.”
“The city can grow and densify without affecting its structure and heritage, ensuring growth and increased housing availability, or it can yield to those who enjoy gawking and taking selfies in front of skyscrapers in New York or Dubai while advocating for a city with ground floors and three stories,” he continued.
In the same tone, the independent mayor also remarked that the “city can be safer without abandoning social components, or it can plunge into securitarianism.”
Addressing mobility, Rui Moreira believes that “the city can have a more efficient and comprehensive public transport network, or it can submit to the will of those imposing individual transportation as a top priority” and that it “can be demanding in its relationship with the central power, claiming its due and leading the fight against centralism, or it can be submissive and timid.”
“The citizens of Porto will choose their path, but they should not believe those who promise the city can be both,” the mayor warned.
Continuing his cautions, the independent mayor asserted that “populist right is now trying to impose its intolerance and relativism on liberal democracies, seeking to condition freedom of expression,” emphasizing that its representatives “have led anti-science movements, such as climate change denial or opposition to public vaccination.”
“Education, science, and culture are being demonized in favor of an arrogant and bold ignorance. This happens because populist leaders know it’s easier to manipulate citizens without knowledge,” he stated.
He stressed that “the problems of cities cannot be solved without genuine administrative decentralization of the country, complemented by enhancing the means and competencies of municipalities,” despite the Portuguese state being “historically reluctant to transfer competencies, resources, and capacities to other power seats, namely to local authorities.”
“There is a true centralizing obsession in Portugal, rooted in the late liberalization and democratization of our political regime and the consequent weakness of many of our public institutions,” the mayor criticized.
As a result, he continued, the “autonomy of municipalities is constrained by strong financial, legal, and operational restrictions,” he said.
“Portugal remains one of the most centralized countries in the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development], a circumstance that profoundly impacts its harmonious development and its social and territorial cohesion,” he added.
For Rui Moreira, with state reform on the agenda and the proximity of local elections, it becomes “pertinent to open public debate on the country’s decentralization,” insisting on the “quality of democracy and the ability of citizens to decide their destinies as a community.”
