Pedro Pimpão calls for a new pact between the Government and local authorities
The president of the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities (ANMP), Pedro Pimpão, requested a new pact between the Government and local authorities, promising the partnership of municipalities in building a more cohesive and fair country.
“Municipalities are the level of power closest to the people, they are the first door you knock on, the first hope you turn to, the first engine of development and progress in our communities. Portugal needs a new pact between the Government and local administration”, he argued.
In the closing session of the XXVII ANMP Congress, Pedro Pimpão took advantage of the presence of the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, to challenge him to take on the association as his main strategic partner: “a demanding and determined strategic partner in the construction of a more cohesive, more modern and fairer country”.
“We will work with your excellency and with the members of the Government responsibly, with institutional loyalty and a vision of the future. But, always in the uncompromising defense of Portuguese municipalities, pillars of democracy of proximity and development of our territories”, he highlighted.
In his opinion, only stronger municipalities make Portugal grow and advance.
“Dear fellow mayors from across the country, when you ask us, as you have asked me several times, which side we will be on, we answer peremptorily: we will be where we have always been, alongside the people and alongside Portugal”, he stated.
Throughout his speech, the president of Pombal City Council (Leiria district) highlighted that the ANMP is a national and aggregating project.
“ANMP belongs to all those who, with their passion, work daily for their communities and it is this plurality that sustains our institutional strength and is also our reason for existing. The ANMP is a plural and non-partisan institution, free, open to all ideological quarters and based on an essential conviction. Municipalism belongs to the real country”, these.
Pimpão recalled that mayors from the continent converge in the ANMP: from the coast and the interior; large metropolitan areas and low-density areas; but also of the autonomous regions.
“Our strength is this diversity that does not divide, but that enriches. A unity that does not require uniformity, nor does it demand unanimity, but that demands commitment and responsibility and commitment”, he stressed.
The new president of the ANMP also reiterated that the mayors want a more cohesive, more modern and truly decentralized country, as well as a new Local Finance Law in 2027 and responsible decentralization with guaranteed financing.