The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, announced this Friday the government diplomas creating two bodies to manage the heritage sector, museums, monuments and palaces, in the hope that they will meet the expectations of the sector.
According to a note published on the website of the Presidency of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa promulgated the Decrees-Law “in the hope that the efforts would translate into current legislative solutions, in the structure of the Ministry of Culture and in cultural policy, can respond to the expectations of the spirit of reform imprinted on the sector”.
The diploma establishing the public business entity Museus e Monumentos de Portugal, and the diploma establishing the public institute Cultural Heritage, approving the respective organizational structure, the activity of which should officially take effect on January 1, 2024, were established respectively.
On 27 July, the government had approved in the Council of Ministers the final version of the decree-laws creating the two bodies for the management of the heritage sector, museums, monuments and palaces, announcing the abolition of the Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage (DGPC ).
The establishment of these two bodies, announced in June, is a reorganization to “make the management of national cultural heritage more agile and effective,” the government said in a statement at the time.
Speaking at a parliamentary hearing on July 19, Culture Minister Pedro Adão e Silva said 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 the subject of public consultation among the representative associations of the sector, with the final wording in approved decree-laws awaiting promulgation by the President of the Republic.
According to what was announced during the public presentation on June 23, Museus e Monumentos de Portugal will be headquartered in Lisbon and will be responsible for museums, palaces and national monuments that hold national treasures, reference collections and monuments. complexes listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
At the time, Pedro Adão e Silva told journalists that the creation of the public company will serve to allow the directors of museums and monuments to increase their income and have more management resources.
“The idea of creating a public company is to increase revenue, but it’s not to pay dividends. It’s so we have resources to invest in collections, in equipment qualification, in human resources and this requires proactive programming,” said the minister.
This limited liability company will have a board of directors, consisting of a chairman and two members, an advisory board and a supervisory board, the composition of which has not been disclosed.
Cultural Heritage, based in Porto, will be responsible for everything related to the management and protection of classified cultural heritage or in the process of classification, will manage the National Center of Nautical and Underwater Archaeology, the Archaeosciences Laboratory, the Fort of Sacavém, the archeology libraries and archives.
It also manages the Cultural Heritage Guarantee Fund.
According to the Ministry of Culture, the state-run area of museums, monuments and palaces had 1,280 employees in 2022, of which 834 were assigned to the DGPC and 446 to the regional directorates of Culture.
Source: DN
