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The Portuguese Public Finance Council (CFP) participated actively in the 19th congress of the Portuguese Regional Development Association (APDR) via Rui Nuno Baleiras, his Executive Member. Held on 20 and 21 June 2013, at the Gualtar campus, in Braga, the congress was locally organised by the Economics and Management School of Universidade do Minho. The CFP co-operated in a plenary session, a special session and in the closing round-table.
The plenary session “Regional Policy: Results and Challenges Ahead in Portugal and Europe” took place on the first day. This was an initiative on institutional governance jointly organised by CFP and the NSRF Observatorium. It aimed at thinking with congress participants on the economic development impact of different ways to articulate general government tiers, on the one hand, and public with private sectors, on the other. Three territorial levels were examined: European, national (Portugal) and regional (North of Portugal region). This was a timely issue in 2013 for two reasons, at least. Firstly, there was at that time in Portugal a general perception about the inevitability of reforming the public sector, together with divergent views on the aims and means to deliver the change. Secondly, that was the moment too to plan a new seven-year cycle of structural policies in Portugal and in the European Union. Chaired by Rui Nuno Baleiras, who also framed the discussion, this session relied on the ideas of Joaquim Oliveira Martins, Head of OECD’s Public Governance and Territorial Development Division, Duarte Rodrigues, Deputy-Coordinator of the NSRF Observatorium, and Rui Monteiro, Head of the Policy Assessment and Regional Studies Centre of the North Regional Coordination and Development Commission (CCDR-N).
On the second day, there was a special session dedicated to public finance and regional development, coordinated by José da Silva Costa, from the School of Economics, at Universidade do Porto. Rui Nuno Baleiras presented the most recent work of CFP at that time in the field of subnational finance, CFP Report No. 1/2013. It illustrated the role that an independent fiscal institution may have to help citizens at large and policy-makers in particular to make informed decisions on local and regional fiscal matters. The paper provides an economic analysis of the local finance and regional finance bills under discussion at the Parliament on the occasion. Dully justified recommendations for legislative change are part of the report.
(Paper presented by CFP’s Executive Member, Prof. Rui Nuno Baleiras)
Finally, the Executive Member offered his comments to the closing round-table convened to discuss possible roles for the North region in post-crisis forward-looking scenarios.
Date of last update: 20/06/2013
