The Government approved, in an extraordinary meeting, the agreement with the municipalities for the decentralization of powers, which was in a deadlock and caused the departure of the National Association of Municipalities of Porto, complaining of insufficient funds. White smoke was pre-announced and the details of the agreement had been announced at the parliamentary hearing of the Minister of Cohesion on Tuesday. Ana Abrunhosa did not want to talk about Rui Moreira, since she left the accusation to the PSD that she was trying to get out of a process that had an agreement with… the PSD at its genesis.
“Whoever criticizes the slowness of an extremely complex and never finished process can only be forgetting that in the meantime we are experiencing a very serious health crisis and we are currently experiencing a war in Europe.” Ana Abrunhosa thus responded to the PSD leader’s criticism of the slowness of the process, also reminding Luís Montenegro that although his party “was try to get away from the process, the basis of decentralization is an agreement between the PSD and the PS”. This Tuesday, Montenegro criticized the “minimum agreement” that “is not from the PSD, but from the Government and the mayors.”
Montenegro says that there was a “minimum agreement” on decentralization “between municipalities and the Government”
The minister acknowledges that it was an agreement that “required a very intense dialogue” and that it took three months to produce a result, with rioters refusing to comment at the press conference on the last day.
A great chapter was not mentioned, that of social action, whose transfer of powers to the municipalities will take place in January 2023 (and which bothered Rui Moreira), with this agreement focused on education and health. In this last area, the Government gave in to what was demanded by the mayors, passing the competence of the definition of opening hours of health centers for the municipalities and also an economic endowment for the open tender announcements for the construction of new health centers and the rehabilitation of another: they will be covered with 128 million euros.
In the case of Education, the Government registered a “85% increase” compared to the value of 20 thousand euros per school (in 2021) for the maintenance of educational establishments. The minister was referring to the 37,000 euros per center that are now effective from next year, recalling that the same figure was already at 31,000 euros with the General State Budget for this year.
Ana Abrunhosa had already said in Parliament and repeated that there are still 335 schools marked as urgent for interventions that will be “fully financed by the central administration”. In addition, the official reaffirmed that the price of school meals will increase from 2.50 euros to 2.75 euros -a value that is below the three euros claimed by the municipalities-.
More than 330 schools that move to the municipalities are of urgent or very urgent intervention, says Minister of Territorial Cohesion
In both health and education, the minister said that all workers transferred to the local administration, within the framework of this process of decentralization of competences, will have their expenses covered by the central administration with work accident insurance, occupational medicine and ASDSE.
The minister also underlined the State Budget rule that provides for “flexibility” in reinforcing the funds transferred to municipalities when it is found that they are insufficient.
Source: Observadora
