Decentralisation and Regionalisation in Portugal
What Reform Scenarios?
This report has been prepared by the OECD upon request by the Portuguese Independent Commission for Decentralisation. Decentralisation and regionalisation reforms have recently emerged on the Portugal’s policy agenda, with two main objectives: assigning more tasks to municipalities and strengthening regional level governance. The report presents a diagnosis of Portugal multi-level governance in international perspectives and highlights the strengths and challenges of the system. It then presents three potential policy paths of regional reform for Portugal. As the options are not mutually exclusive, they could work as complements to each other. The report analyses the conditions under which the reforms may deliver more economic efficiency and regional equity.
Regionalisation in the context of decentralisation reforms
This chapter discusses four main ways that can be used to strengthen regional-level decision-making: i) deconcentration of central government service delivery, ii) intermunicipal co-operation, iii) regional decentralisation and iv) establishing regions with elected self-government and fiscal autonomy. The chapter also describes reforms that have been carried out in European Union (EU) countries. A more detailed description is provided for regional reforms that have been carried out Finland, France and Poland. These countries provide interesting examples of different solutions to similar challenges.
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