In the Azores, small observations continue to emerge here, there, and everywhere regarding the implications of the powers held by the autonomous regions and by local governments. There appears to exist, albeit in a very subtle manner, a certain tension between those who discuss autonomy and those who seek to expand the powers of local municipalities.

Those who wish to preserve what remains of the autonomous system point to actions undertaken by the Autonomous Region (AR) that deepen political domination over society through whichever parties happen to hold power. For example, the autonomous regime governing access to funding by parish councils through the AR, recently approved, was subjected neither to a political veto nor to a legal veto; and yet, that regional law violates both the Constitution and the Political Statute of the Autonomous Region. In its legal justification, provisions from those two fundamental laws are cited even though they bear no relation whatsoever to the matter at hand.

Now, when the AR creates this sort of mechanism, beyond the aggravated unconstitutionality and illegality involved, one inevitable conclusion emerges: the AR seeks to take advantage of parish councils in order to bind and control them through access to funding. And although, due to the novelty of the law, it is still impossible to provide concrete examples, it is entirely plausible that such a reality may eventually unfold. Anyone mature in matters of citizenship understands that democracy must not function a posteriori; on the contrary, it is within procedural democracy that one discerns the potential problems gradually thickening until society drifts into a crisis of identity.

Others, meanwhile, defend local municipalities while agreeing with the aforementioned example. Their greater concern lies with municipalism, and more specifically with public collective entities possessing financial autonomy: the CIMs, or intermunicipal communities, which are provided for in local government law on the Portuguese mainland, but not in the Autonomous Regions.

The CIMs — groupings of two or more municipalities — possess a political leadership composed of the presidents of the respective municipalities, while also maintaining their own personnel. These entities possess considerable merits: they promote territorial coordination and coherence; they operate on a broader scale; they are capable of receiving greater funding and broader responsibilities from the State; they improve the attraction of investment; they increase mobility; they organize, coordinate, and manage shared projects; and consequently, they administer European funds more effectively. It is a model that strengthens technical and strategic capacity because its vision encompasses the territorial whole of the constituent municipalities.

By contrast, the municipal system in the Autonomous Region, which lacks the possibility of CIMs, remains centralized within the AR itself, since geographical dispersion entails higher costs. In summary, the CIM functions as an instrument of management and coordination, rendering administration more homogeneous through limited territorial dispersion; meanwhile, the system within the AR becomes politically and financially concentrated due to the European funds tied to insularity and regional status.

That is the functional comparison. Theoretically speaking, the model tends to favor municipal governance within the AR. This is further confirmed through financial comparison, according to average data from the AI: the CIMs (not the municipalities themselves, it should be noted) receive between €400 and €700 per inhabitant; Madeira receives between €800 and €1,400; and the Azores between €900 and €1,500.

The Autonomous Regions agreed to this CIM model solely for mainland Portugal: during hearings on the law (Law 75/2013), both Autonomous Regions expressed their positions — the Azores declined to issue an opinion, while Madeira voted against it due to the creation of “new remunerated burdens.” The representative associations of municipalities did not object and had, in fact, already possessed since 1990 urban communities and municipal associations that allowed cooperation, though the results remained fragmented.

Now then, those within the AR who defend the CIM system do not do so, we believe, because of any lack of European or state financial investment; nor because of an absence of legal mechanisms, since municipalities may create cooperative instruments (and may even apply jointly for support). Nor, I continue to believe, do they do so because of difficulties in accessing European funding, since the AR cannot spend funds earmarked for municipalities (although it may temporarily use them as a banking mechanism for payments).

What motivates, in our understanding, the desire to establish CIMs within the AR is the political centrality concentrated on one island to the detriment of the other eight islands — a reality that even the blind and the deaf recognize clearly because they feel it in their own lived experience. The landholding elites (and not the populations themselves, who are intelligent and rational) of the centralist island shield themselves behind parochial justifications, while the surrounding islands complain of that unmistakable and profoundly unconstitutional centralization.

In theory, we agree with the application of the CIM system in the Azores. But not indiscriminately. We must undertake the studies capable of providing at least a minimal understanding of the benefits involved — not merely financial benefits, but also political and, above all, democratic ones.

That is the essential point. The creation of new structures of municipal power without a corresponding democratic foundation — that, indeed, must never be allowed.

Translated and adapted from a two-part publication in Diário Insular