The Government will launch an extraordinary Support Program for Museums of the Portuguese Museum Network (ProMuseus), worth one million euros, to support equipment affected by bad weather, the Minister of Culture announced this Monday, February 16th.
“In the Promuseus that is currently underway, the deadline was extended precisely to take care of the absolutely abnormal situation experienced in recent weeks, which prevented many museums from being able to concentrate on preparing their applications. But this is regular support. What we are going to do in the coming weeks is launch an extraordinary procedure worth one million euros to support museums that have been affected in the context of these storms”said the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, Margarida Balseiro Lopes.
The minister was speaking to journalists after a visit to spaces affected by the weather, in Coimbra, during the morning, when she pointed out that, in the case of Museums and Monuments in Portugal, there is “a group of museums that were affected, in addition to those that belong to the central administration”.
In the 68 municipalities where a state of calamity was declared, there are “around 25 museums integrated into the Portuguese Museum Network and only four are from the Central State”.
The Government, he said, will launch “an extraordinary ProMuseus, worth one million euros, to precisely – and many of these facilities are even municipal – support these facilities and also take some of the burden off the municipalities”.
The objective is that “museums can reopen with the best possible conditions”, he added.
“In this one million euros we are talking about going beyond what were our primary responsibilities and being able to support many of these pieces of equipment”he stressed.
In relation to the Machado de Castro National Museum, in Coimbra, visited this Friday by Margarida Balseiro Lopes, the official highlighted the fall (shifting, sliding or even falling) of several sheets and tiles, alluding to the fact that the expectation is to reopen the equipment in around four months.
This cultural structure, which is part of the national museums under the supervision of Museus e Monumentos de Portugal (MMP), and does not meet the support criteria of the extraordinary ProMuseus, suffered damage estimated at more than 200 thousand euros, as the director of the space, Sandra Saldanha, told journalists today.
Asked whether the museum would have to be closed for the works, she highlighted that the situation still needs to be analyzed.
In any case, the space will close from next week, “at least until the summer”, due to the progress of the renovation works that were already being carried out in the space.
The Minister of Culture also announced that the Government intends to move forward with a project to deal with damage to the Sé Velha, also in Coimbra, “which is not just the result of the storm of January 28th”.
“There are, in fact, some structural problems and what we also flagged, and I always had it here in conversation with the mayor [de Coimbra]is to take advantage of this opportunity to carry out a deeper intervention, to give greater resilience to the building itself”, which was visited by the government official.
This is an intervention lasting “at least 18 months”, and there is a concern to keep the space visitable during this period.
As he explained, the survey will still have to be carried out to understand what types of modifications are necessary and what their value is.
The head of the Culture portfolio also recalled that the first package of support measures had already been presented, where there was a financial envelope of R$20 million for Culture.
The measure must then “be articulated with other instruments that we already have at our disposal”, he contextualized, giving as an example the Cultural Heritage Safeguarding Fund.
Also present on the visit, the president of the Coimbra municipality recalled that Coimbra has areas classified as UNESCO heritage “and, through this classification, there is a lot of heritage of incalculable value affected”.
Ana Abrunhosa also pointed out damage to agriculture, businesses, housing and municipal equipment and infrastructure, highlighting the objective of surveying the damage and working in an articulated way to resolve these issues.
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