I return to the chronicle on the reform of municipal power for my second reflection on the subject. Today I'm going to discuss some topics about the recent history of the Algarve's local government.
While the emancipation of the “local political society” progresses very slowly beyond municipal politics, the great heavy trends that surround and mark the evolution of municipal power continue to generate high context, transaction and operation costs and warn us that there are “ political limits" to the growth of municipal power if, to that end, deep reforms are not carried out in the modus operandi of the local society.
I. Macrotrends affecting local government
In general and schematically, there are long-lasting macro-trends that will always affect the structuring, functioning and performance of local government, far beyond the administration of everyday municipal life.
Here are very briefly some of these macro trends:
– Closer and closer to the demographic winter: we are talking about inverted demographic pyramids, demographically moribund councils and home councils with no assured future.
– The growing damage caused by global and systemic risks: we are talking about climate change, severe droughts, totally random and unpredictable risks, large collateral damage and now also the irruption of the so-called “black swans”, imponderable events that can cause untold harm to populations.
– The acceleration of territorial socio-economic dynamics: with globalization, we speak of ever shorter economic cycles, a space-time compression that triggers more frequent asymmetric shocks, an extreme volatility of investments in search of immediate returns and, for all this, from more councils in the emergency and intensive care bank.
– Few local problems will be solved only at the local level: we are talking about problems for which the City Council does not have appropriate attributions, competences and means, of problems that require the articulation of various levels or scales of government and administration, therefore, a lot of negotiation and of many waiting periods, during which opportunity and relevance are lost, and, how often, the effectiveness and economy of the public expenditure carried out.
– The saturation of the municipal public space: this is a problem that, in part, stems from the above, as the population has the immediate perception that there are insoluble problems within the strict municipal framework; as a result, zones of indifference by the citizens are created, some zones of opacity and suspicion and a municipal rhetoric that does not always value, in the best sense, the quality of the municipal public space.
– The exhaustion of the 1st generation municipal development model: the municipalities generally completed the first cycle of local development associated with 1st generation infrastructure and equipment (local public goods and social needs); this cycle is associated with a financial model based on transfers and indebtedness that is heavily dependent on the state budget and the banking system; as evidenced in the Portuguese case, these transfers are strongly correlated with economic cycles and with public investment that the european fiscal rules allow.
After the cycle of “non-tradable public goods” it is now time to discuss, in the digital age, the interactive municipality 2.0, the new generation of intermunicipal common goods and the new financing model for territorial development.
II. Topics on the recent history of the Algarve's local government
We are in the Algarve, a paradoxical region. With only 430 inhabitants, it is not a standard European region with 4 or 5 million inhabitants, nor is it an average compact European city with 450 inhabitants. Rather, it is an archipelago-region, or, if you like, a city-region, in search of its own personality.
To better appreciate this paradoxical region, let us look at the Algarve society in three distinct periods: the recent past (1974-2008), the near present (2009-2014) and the future present (2015-2020).
1. The recent past (1974-2008)
The main characteristics of the "local model in the Algarve" of this period
– The priority given to equipment and infrastructure;
– The preference given to the tourism-real estate sector (the construction bubble);
– An assumed conflict of interest with land use and planning;
– The accumulation of an important bank debt to leverage this “model”;
– A growing dependence of the municipality on real estate revenues;
– Direct dependence on support from European funds;
– A suitable tolerance for the growth of the informal economy.
The main lines of force of the "local model in the Algarve" of this period
– The consecration and celebration of municipal power;
– The municipalization of the regional political-administrative system;
– The formation of the “autonomous constellation” of interests;
– The construction of the “Local-State”;
– The marriage of convenience between local and regional administrations;
– Consolidation of the local apparatus of political parties;
– A civil society “softened” by access to the material pleasures of consumption.
2. The next present (2009 – 2014)
An atypical period and "on condition"
– A major international crisis in 2007/2008;
– A country on the brink of bankruptcy in 2011;
– A country under international rescue and on parole between 2011-2014;
– A loss of 6% of GDP between 2010 and 2014;
– A macroeconomic adjustment in collision with local and regional economies;
– The “deleveraging” of bank credit and serious liquidity and insolvency problems:
– The contraction of internal and external demand and high unemployment in the region.
The end of the cycle of a local-regional “growth model”
– The new watchwords: adjustment, rationalization, extinction, reorganization, restructuring, termination;
– The new policy instruments, some examples: the law of commitments, the extinction of an important part of the “Local-State”, the creation of the PAEL (support program for the local economy), the creation of the FAM (municipal support fund ), the publication of a new law on municipalities, municipal associations and inter-municipal communities, new programs for retraining and terminating employees;
– The sharp fall in municipal revenues reveals, in all its extension, the financial crisis of the local government and the tourism-real estate model.
The main lines of force of this period
– The return in force of centralization and centralism in Lisbon;
– Regional policy used as the “yo-yo” of the macroeconomic austerity policy;
– The worsening of precarious working conditions and impoverishment;
– The weaknesses of the regional associative movement despite some local responses;
– The weakness of regional political power in this crucial period for the Algarve society.
3. The present future (2015 – 2020)
The main features of the period until 2020
– Sensitively manage the “tourist bubble” with regard to local accommodation,
– Sensitively manage the balance between construction and rehabilitation,
– Sensitively manage the gentrification process of historic centers,
– Take advantage of the tree tourism to rebalance local finances,
– Take advantage of the tourist cycle and find a financing model for the local economy,
– Take advantage of the new cycle and make a decisive contribution to the circular economy in all its dimensions, starting with the use of agricultural land and local production;
– Take advantage of the new cycle and reach out to younger people in the form of smart cities and smart grids.
Administer a city-region in the form of a pilot region
– The Algarve is a city-region, a hybrid, dispersed and diffused with 430 inhabitants,
– The Algarve needs an executive and a regional administration,
– The Algarve needs 2nd degree municipal federalism to become stronger,
– The Algarve needs a political and civic impulse towards the pilot region;
– The Algarve needs, out of respect and constitutional dignity, a mobilizing project to reconsider its future.
Final grade
Talking about the future is not an easy task, which does not mean that it is not necessary or even essential.
And it's not easy, right from the start, because each one of us manages expectations differently in the way we anticipate the future. And it is still not easy to talk about the future because the speed and contraction of space and time have reduced the past and future to the dimensions of the present, that is, to the immediate and the instant.
The consequence is obvious and known. We are overloading the daily management tasks, as everything becomes urgent in such a congested context.
Administrations lose clairvoyance and discernment, municipalities run the risk of becoming instances of last resort, whether in civil protection or social action, or in sponsoring or mediating conflicts of all kinds.
Talking about the future has, however, a huge advantage, namely, it changes the perspective and angle of observation of the problems, and, above all, it focuses on regional self-esteem and the future of our fellow citizens, children and grandchildren. It therefore reclassifies our social and political responsibility.
For this reason, opening the public debate on the pilot region of the Algarve is talking about a project-territory, a desired-territory, it is opening up the field of possibilities for the local political society, it is refreshing the municipal public space and power autarchic, it is to reconsider the way in which the various local institutions function, it is to understand the real meaning and reach of the paradigm of cooperation and collaboration networks, it is to give priority to the itinerancy and polyvalence of personal services to the most unprotected citizen, it is to demystify an institutional communication of With an often paternalistic and moralistic inclination, it is, finally, to dare to rehearse the pilot region of the Algarve in some problem areas, without waiting for such a desideratum to be decreed in an official newspaper.
A simple act of citizenship according to our collective intelligence.
Author António Covas is a full professor at the University of Algarve and a PhD in European Affairs from the Free University of Brussels
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