Minho Urban Pentagon mayors call for concrete steps towards the Minho Metropolitan Area

Minho Urban Pentagon seeks formal progress on the Minho Metropolitan Area

Braga, Guimarães, Barcelos, Famalicão and Viana do Castelo want tangible moves towards establishing the Minho Metropolitan Area, so the region can increase its scale and influence.

The local authority leaders from the five municipalities that make up the Minho Urban Pentagon argued on Tuesday that concrete steps are needed to speed up the process of creating the Minho Metropolitan Area. Their central aim is to strengthen cooperation so the region can operate on a larger scale and carry more weight-particularly when it comes to securing funding.

Multilevel governance highlighted at the Mestre Casais Foundation conference

Opening the conference “Looking to the future from the Minho Urban Pentagon”, organised by the Mestre Casais Foundation, the President of the Northern Regional Coordination and Development Commission (CCDR Norte), Álvaro Santos, stressed that multilevel governance “is increasingly a practical requirement for achieving better results”. He also described the Minho Urban Pentagon as “one of the most interesting examples of what successful multilevel governance can look like”.

Consensus in the debate

In the discussion that followed-with the mayors of Braga (João Rodrigues), Famalicão (Mário Passos), Guimarães (Ricardo Araújo) and Viana do Castelo (Luís Nobre), alongside Barcelos councillor Pedro Ferreira-there was broad agreement on the benefits of putting inter-municipal cooperation on a formal footing.

Ricardo Araújo said, “I am clearly in favour of the Minho Metropolitan Area so that we can plan and deliver together”, arguing that a stronger framework is needed-greater “structuring”-to “make the leap” into a new administrative reality. He added, “It can be done gradually, but we have to take concrete steps.”

That message was reinforced by Luís Nobre, who underlined the need to “move into action”. In the same vein, João Rodrigues said the Metropolitan Area would be “absolutely advantageous”. He maintained, “It is very important to look at the region as a whole, understanding how we can work in a coordinated way, particularly in terms of mobility.”

Also aligning with João Rodrigues, Mário Passos argued that the inter-municipal communities (CIM) of Ave and Cávado will have a “fundamental role” in ensuring the Metropolitan Area “begins to take shape” in formal terms. He emphasised, “A supramunicipal structure will help us make the most of our potentialities.” His position was backed by Pedro Ferreira, representing Barcelos City Council, who concluded, “The Metropolitan Area will make complete sense in terms of asserting itself on the national stage.”