The Government approved, this Thursday, March 2nd, at the decentralized Council of Ministers held in Faro, the new organic law of Coordination and Regional Development Commissions. All regional directorates will be extinguished, by March 2024, and integrated into the CCDR.
No briefing after the meeting, and in which the Sul Informação was the only regional newspaper present and asked the first question, Ana Abrunhosa, Minister of Territorial Cohesion, said that this new organization will «reinforce the CCDR as responsible for regional development».
In practice, what will change is that the current regional directorates will be integrated into the CCDR.
In a first phase, according to Ana Abrunhosa, the services of Agriculture, Nature Conservation, Spatial Planning, Health and Education will be integrated.
The remaining services "will be gradually" integrated, with "completion expected by March 2024".
The Minister for Territorial Cohesion also announced that, "to bring citizens closer together", a "One Stop Shop" will be created, in the Coordination and Regional Development Commissions, for "companies and citizens, in the different licensing processes".
«There will be only one entrance door. This does not mean that the different agencies of public administration cease to have responsibility for licensing. What will happen is a simplification in terms of the relationship between citizens, companies and the State», explained Ana Abrunhosa.
Another of the changes is in the Board of Directors of the CCDR, which will now have a president and a maximum of four vice-presidents (currently there were only two).
Questioned by Sul Informação, Mariana Vieira da Silva said that the fact that this new law was approved in a Council of Ministers in Faro it was not “a fluke of the calendar”.
«We chose a region where this issue of the need to strengthen central administration services had long been defended», considered the Minister of the Presidency.
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