The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, today promulgated the Government’s diplomas creating two bodies to manage the heritage sector, museums, monuments and palaces, hoping that they will meet the sector’s expectations.
According to a note published on the website of the Presidency of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa promulgated the decree-laws “in the hope that the effort reflected in these legislative solutions, in the organization of the Ministry of Culture and in the policy of Culture, can meet the expectations of the reformist spirit imposed on the sector”.
The law creating the public corporate entity Museus e Monumentos de Portugal (Museums and Monuments of Portugal) and the law creating the public institute Património Cultural (Cultural Heritage), and approving their respective organizational structure, were enacted, and should officially come into force on January 1, 2024.
On July 27, the government approved, in the Council of Ministers, the final version of the decree-laws creating the two bodies to manage the heritage sector, museums, monuments and palaces, with the announced extinction of the Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage (DGPC).
The creation of these two bodies, announced in June, concerns a reorganization to “make the management of national cultural heritage more agile and effective,” the government explained in a statement at the time.
At a parliamentary hearing on July 19, the Minister of Culture, Pedro Adão e Silva, said that the planned reform aims to “give a breath of vitality” to Portuguese museums.
This reorganization was announced in June, had a public presentation in Lisbon and was in public consultation among the associations representing the sector, with its final wording in approved decree-laws awaiting promulgation by the President of the Republic.
According to what was announced at the public presentation on June 23, Museus e Monumentos de Portugal will be based in Lisbon and will be responsible for national museums, palaces and monuments that hold national treasures, reference collections and monuments or ensembles inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Pedro Adão e Silva told reporters at the time that the creation of the public company would enable the directors of museums and monuments to increase revenue and have more management resources.
“The idea of creating a public company is to increase revenue, but it’s not to distribute dividends. It’s so that we can have the resources to invest in the collections, in the qualification of the equipment, in human resources and this needs proactive programming,” said the minister.
This public company will have a board of directors, with a chairman and two members, an advisory board and a board of trustees, although the composition of these bodies has not been announced.
Cultural Heritage, based in Oporto, will be responsible for everything related to the management and safeguarding of cultural heritage that has been classified or is in the process of being classified. It will manage the National Nautical and Underwater Archaeology Center, the Archaeosciences Laboratory, the Sacavém Fort, the Archaeology Libraries and Archives.
It will also manage the Cultural Heritage Safeguard Fund.
According to the Ministry of Culture, the area of museums, monuments and palaces under the supervision of the State had 1,280 workers in 2022, of which 834 were assigned to the DGPC and 446 to the regional directorates of Culture.
