It is a «gradual, smooth process, with a lot of responsibility from the mayors, as we want to receive the powers from the Government and exercise them well», guaranteed Jorge Botelho, president of AMAL – Comunidade Intermunicipal do Algarve. Even so, there is far from a consensus in the Algarve on the ongoing decentralization process.
The Minister of Internal Administration Eduardo Cabrita, accompanied by the Secretary of State for Local Authorities and other members of the Government, met this Tuesday with the mayors of the Algarve at AMAL headquarters, in Faro, to talk about topics related to your folder, but also of decentralization.
In the end, AMAL president Jorge Botelho made a positive assessment of the meeting. «It was a very attended meeting by the mayors, which lasted more than three hours, with many questions and a lot of information flowing. A full clarification was given by the Government», he summed up.
When there are only a few days for the municipalities to communicate to the Government which powers they are going to assume, or if they don't, it is already certain that there will not be harmony between the different municipalities of the Algarve with regard to the assumption of competences.
If, on the one hand, Olhão e Portimão, both with socialist executives, have already said that they will assume all competences, whose passage to the municipalities was regulated in 11 diplomas approved by the Council of Ministersin 2018, the Mayor of Lagoa Francisco Martins – who was elected by the PS of António Costa – and the mayor of Silves Rosa Palma, elected by the CDU, have already made it clear that they do not intend to take on any new assignment, at least for the time being.
There are also those who choose to only assume some of the new responsibilities, as is the case of Tavira, by Jorge Botelho, who will call himself “nine of the 11 powers that the Government decentralized”. Lagos, on the other hand, another socialist autarchy – like the Tavirense one – only proposes to assume the competence related to the domain of the management of unused public real estate, as early as 2019, rejecting the others.
Still, “nobody looks at anybody and says: I am more decentralizer than you. We are all for decentralization. One or the other has some doubts about assuming some of the competences now. But there were those who chose to assume what is inevitable now», framed the president of AMAL and the Chamber of Tavira.
“Next week we will assess who has accepted everything, who has not accepted anything, who has only accepted some of the skills. That's not what worries us at this stage. We are interested in accepting the competences that we have to accept and being inserted in a progressive decentralization process, carried out with consideration and caution”, he reinforced.
Even because, in the view of the Tavirense mayor, the decentralization underway “is good for us, who are for regionalization, and for the citizen, who has the closest decision process and even more monitorable”.
And if, with regard to the competences of the Chambers, each municipality knows about itself, as far as AMAL is concerned, this is a matter to be resolved, without fail, by 16. This is because it is enough for one of the Municipal Assemblies of the Algarve to make the acceptance unfeasible new attributions, by the Algarve Intermunicipal Community, so that it cannot assume them.
“There are four competences for AMAL: Tourism, Regional Funds, Justice and Civil Protection. We, mayors, have already approved here at AMAL, by an overwhelming majority, to accept these competences. Now, whether it advances or not depends on the unanimous approval of the 16 Municipal Assemblies. Each assembly and each mayor assumes its responsibility», illustrated Jorge Botelho.
Minister Eduardo Cabrita also devalues the accounting of those who accept or not, from now on, the competences. “This is a gradual process. We are 40 years behind and what was decided and the agreement reached with the National Association of Municipalities and the National Association of Parishes is historic. This is the biggest reform of the State of this legislature», he defended.
“What we are doing is, in three years, to prepare the municipalities for a broad process of decentralization. As we have seen here in the Algarve, as well as in other parts of the country, most of the competences, most of the Chambers assume them already. Some understand, with good reason, that they need more preparation time. That is why a gradual period for the exercise of these competences was foreseen, until January 2021”, added Eduardo Cabrita.
At Tuesday's meeting, between members of the Government and mayors of the Algarve, there was not only talk of decentralization. A review of the situation was also made on the various matters: security, Brexit, civil protection, forest sappers and preparations for the next summer season.
"An important point that was discussed at this meeting was the issue of firefighters, namely on the status of Municipal Firefighters and the status of volunteer firefighters, on the EIPs and all the problems that have been associated with them," added Jorge Botelho.
On this matter, the Minister of Internal Administration assured that negotiations with the firefighters "are proceeding in a very positive way, guaranteeing what is fair: that sapper firefighters have new developments in their careers, but above all that justice is done with regard to Municipal Firefighters, who today have much lower remuneration levels than sappers».
It is also possible to overcome the precariousness of the Special Fire Brigade, that is, that we will have a professional fire brigade in the central administration, either in the National Civil Protection Authority or the future sappers of the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests" .
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