In this last opinion article on the reform of municipal power, I bring some brief reflections on the inter-municipal communities and the next generation of territorial policies.
I. The opportunity for inter-municipal communities
The country has very recently constituted 23 inter-municipal communities (CIM), most of them coinciding with NUTS III (NUTS II sub-regions); this is a very relevant level of programming, planning and implementation of territorial policies for reconsidering the entire regional, local and rural development system in the country.
It is enough to remember, by the way, that the country has in practically every district capital a polytechnic institute or a university, whose areas of influence and action include the CIM and NUTS III, and that all these institutions urgently need to refresh and renew their mission and gain a supplement of legitimacy in a historical time of great demand for the country.
Furthermore, in the same territorial scope, the country has business associations, industrial parks and business groups that urgently need to prove their lives, to recapitalize and rejuvenate themselves and to demonstrate that they are not mere simulacra, but true business projects.
The triangulation between these three entities - the intermunicipal communities, polytechnic institutes and universities and business associations - could give rise to and be the basis of "a pact or convention for territorial development" for the NUTS III/CIM level", with the objective to commit the three entities to a regional development project for the current programming period, which ends in 2020 and the next until 2026.
This NUTS III/CIM territorial development convention would be conceived and practiced within the NUTS II regional development program and only in that context would it find sufficient justification.
Moreover, and within the framework of a political philosophy of territorial development contracts, the central government “would be invited” to present a proposal for the reform of regional and local administration, in the form of a framework law for political-administrative decentralization, where the NUTS II level would be constituted as the appropriate seat for a new territorial rationality and intelligence, in particular, in what are today the missions and functions of the regional coordination and development commissions, as well as of the regional services in general, in the sense the formation of a regional executive with a mandate that could be expressed, for example, through a resolution of the council of ministers after the assent of the Regional Council to that effect.
In this sequence, a contract signed with the central administration would establish the terms of the territorial development convention; to embody the project, the ITI instrument (integrated territorial investment) would be used, as provided for in the regulations for this programming period.
To carry out the project for the development and implementation of the ITI, a “dedicated governance” would be created based on the three main promoting partners and, for this purpose, an actor-network capable of embodying a mission structure endowed with executive powers in the territory of CIM/NUTS III.
In the same territorial development contract, the three main promoters would be obliged to present a proposal for the reform of the CIM's multi-local administration that would consider not only a new structure of utilities for the network-territory under construction as an institutionality adapted to the development project in order to form new territorial commons.
Finally, within the scope of this philosophy of development contracts for NUTS III/CIM level network territories, the central government would propose a legal and financial framework of incentives suitable for the construction of this dedicated administration and the formation of business cooperation and extension networks serving the universe of micro-enterprises that make up the business fabric of the interior of the country.
II. The next generation of territory policies
In this last topic, I would like to leave a final reflection on what I understand to be the next generation of territory policies.
In the coming decades, we will most likely live in “multiple territories”, some more material, others more virtual.
Because of this multiterritoriality, the question makes sense: how are we going to occupy, from now on, “our rectangle”, respecting the virtuous idea of the nation as a harmonious occupation of the territory?
It is important to say that, especially in the last decade (2007-2017), the European option has placed this modest rectangle in a kind of prisoner's dilemma. The European Union has offered us the “carrot and stick” that, unfortunately, we so badly need, but we have not managed to get the right dose between economic policy and structural reforms, so that we have truly sustainable potential growth ahead of us and for many years.
The contingency we live in because of levels of debt, public and private, bad debt and the prospect of rating it calls into question our already limited degrees of freedom.
In this somewhat saturated and hostile environment, we urgently need a “big foresight” to see how we are going to implement the next generation of territory policies.
In this regard, I am personally convinced that a common Portuguese-Spanish strategy for the next programming period of the European funds 2020-2026, in order to jointly program the main “network investments of the peninsular macro-region”, would be especially successful and appropriate for all investments of a lower order to be carried out in the different regions of the two countries.
All the following proposals to “produce territory” would gain in consistency, functionality and effectiveness if they had this macro-region strategy behind them. Let us see, in a schematic way, the main hypotheses present to “produce new territory”, in the more general framework of the next period of programming and policies for the territory 2020-2026:
1) The metropolitan arches of the coast
The metropolitan arc of the northwest, the metropolitan system of the coastal center, the metropolitan arc of Lisbon and the metropolitan arc of the Algarve make sense in the transatlantic world as gateways to the new world and crossroads of cultures and civilizations, claimed by transatlantic trade and investment, the deepening of the CPLP and the “promise of the sea” following the expansion of our maritime platform.
2) The networks of medium-sized cities and city-regions
Forty years after the 25th of April, the country is still bent on its Lilliputian urbanism. The networks of small and medium-sized cities and the formation of smart city-regions are a promise for the future that may inspire the new version of POLIS XXI to support the “Great Country of the Interior”.
3) Technological poles and smart grids
The information and knowledge society is already there and digital culture will create a new society of variable geometry that will have very little to do with the existing political-administrative borders. In addition to the country we think we know, there will be many other countries ready to blossom. The immaterial and intangible territories of intermunicipality will be absolutely surprising.
4) The "constitutionally" consecrated administrative regions
This hypothesis remains open and is in line with the traditional division of political-administrative boundaries. The NUTS II level is the territory corresponding to the current regional development and coordination commissions. It is the evolution of the so-called “coordinating model” of deconcentrated administration to a “politically representative” model that will create five administrative regions on the continent. The form and substance of this administrative model can vary greatly. In any case, we are in the pure terrain of traditional clientele.
5) The consecration of the Local State through the intermunicipal communities
After the bankruptcy of many municipal companies and foundations and the municipalization of many local development associations, it is now the turn of the Local State to promote inter-municipal communities. There will be no lack of good arguments: climate change, ecological and sustainable economy, the specific needs of senior society, poverty and exclusion. In any case, there is a very appreciable margin of progress here.
6) Post-agricultural and neo-rural Portugal
The virtuous connection between virtual culture and the rural world can open a very promising path for the occupation of the territory, bringing to the tranquility of the interior of the country many professional and many neo-rural activities that will tomorrow be the promoters of the 2nd rurality and other geographies innovative territorial areas.
Final grade
In conclusion, allow me only a solemn warning to territorial navigation. The “Great Inland Country” was seriously damaged after the adjustment process between 2011 and 2014.
The territorial model that is already on the ground can be pure “territorial cacophony” to distract the most incautious. If, in the next programming period, the CIMs, municipal associations, municipal foundations and companies and local development associations only serve to carry out a “corporate cooperation” instead of a “collaborative and creative cooperation”, in order to create in these sub-regions a new generation of non-tradable public goods and new/old clientele relationships, then all of this will have been a big mistake and a monumental achievement.
Ah, it's true, to innovate territorial development it is always possible to occupy the territory with satellites, drones, clouds and GPS!!
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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