The Minister of the Sea, Ana Paula Vitorino and the Defence Minister, José Alberto de Azeredo Lopes, visited the Algarve on Tuesday to attend two ceremonies.
The first marked the start of safety work on sea defences and stairs at the ports of Portimão, Lagos and Sagres and to present the Costa Segura system for coastal surveillance and navigation safety.
At the second ceremony in Olhão, the first steps were taken for the repair work to the near-to-collapsing jetties used by hundreds of thousands of tourists and locals each year.
This will be paid for by the council, but as officials love signing bits of paper, a protocol was signed with Docapesca to allow the council to do the work in a zone that is Docapesca’s responsibility.
“This is not,” said the mayor of Olhão, António Pina, "a muliti-million euro job, nor is it technically difficult, but it is of the greatest importance for those who live on the islands.”
At the same meeting, a second protocol was signed, to transfer a building on Culatra to the maritime authority so it can become a usefully located Maritime Police station.
One of the problems with signing this protocol in Olhão is that Culatra comes under the Faro council area – mayor Rogério Bacalhau was not amused and issued a sharp criticism for the local press to disseminate. Bacalhau knew that he had been sidelined by the minister as he is not a socialist mayor and Olhão’s photogenic António Pina is.
It’s not to say that Bacalhau was not invited to the signing ceremony, he was - but only on Monday which gave him an excuse to duck out of an embarrassing situation.
The presidential Vitorino adopted an imperial tone, dismissing Bacalhau’s moan as not conducive to intermunicipal and government relations, after all, she said, the morning signing ceremony in Portimão covered areas outside that municipality and a number of mayors turned up to kiss her hand.
In response to the Ministry of the Sea, Rogério Bacalhau described the situation as "outrageous for this municipality and for the Faro population - the fact that this ceremony was scheduled to take place in the streets of another municipality."
Bacalhau runs a right-wing coalition composed of PSD / CDS-PP / MPT / PPM / MIM. In the note sent to the newsrooms today, the council said it was incandescent that Faro had been dethroned by neighboring Olhão in the signing of the protocol, but also only to have been informed about the ceremony on yesterday, Tuesday, was the height of rudeness from the minister’s office.
Rogério Bacalhau responded to his invitation saying that he would not attend, "due to a previous engagement" and did not send a deputy.
