Lisbon, July 8, 2025 (Lusa) - The Lisbon City Council and the Ministry of Internal Administration will outline a specific security plan for the city, and they will announce the implementation date soon, the mayor said on Tuesday.

Carlos Moedas was speaking to journalists after a meeting in Lisbon with the minister for internal affairs, Maria Lúcia Amaral. He requested the meeting on 9 June “as a matter of urgency” to discuss “responses to the security challenges the city is addressing”.

“It was an excellent meeting. I think I sensed a dynamic in the Ministry of Internal Affairs that I had not felt for a long time, but above all I sensed a minister with a vision for what is specific to the city of Lisbon,” the Social Democrat began by saying.

According to the mayor, “there is recognition, but above all there is a vision and a plan” for the city, and the mayor and the minister agreed to look at the situation in Lisbon concerning the number of details required from the PSP and Municipal Police.

“We are going to establish a specific action plan for Lisbon, and I think it is very important, it shows the minister’s vision and also shows recognition of the situation in Lisbon,” he reiterated.

Carlos Moedas recalled that Lisbon, the country’s capital, “has many specific characteristics found only in this city”, not least because it has 570,000 inhabitants and “more than a million people enter and leave every day”.

The mayor added that the team has not set dates for this strategy yet, noting that the idea “was launched here,” and thanked Maria de Lúcia Amaral, “because it is a necessary plan for Lisbon.”

“Whether in terms of numbers of PSP, Municipal Police, joint actions, mixed patrols, night guards, the Municipal Police’s ability to make arrests here - all of this will be part of this approach,” he explained.

Carlos Moedas, who continues to reflect on his re-election bid for the government in the local elections on 12 October, also said he was willing to “take on costs, if necessary”, even if he would later receive reimbursement.

“I told the minister that she can count on me for the work of a mayor, which is to be on the streets and also have that knowledge of the streets.”

She is the minister responsible for national security. Still, I was really pleased that there was an understanding of what Lisbon is today, and Lisbon has this sense of being an open city, and it will be safe, and that is very important for all of us,” he stressed.

The meeting also addressed the issue of regulations for night guards, an idea launched by the Lisbon City Council, which consists of having 56 night guards in the city to ensure “safety during the night for many people”. The government will move forward with the “regulation and training” of those who will perform this function.

The meeting also addressed the issue of the video surveillance project in the city and “speeding up this project”, according to Carlos Moedas, who pointed out that 32 cameras exist in Cais do Sodré and another 30 in Campo das Cebolas, “which are just waiting to be connected”.

Carlos Moedas also said he had spoken to the minister about the installation of “temporary cameras in certain streets”, recalling that the video surveillance plan in the city of Lisbon “has been in place since 2009” and that, at the time, some streets were calm, but surveillance now makes sense.

One area of the city where the mayor defended the need for video surveillance is Martim Moniz, considering it “undoubtedly one of the priority areas that the initial design did not include, in a way”.

“Martim Moniz, the whole area of Avenida da Liberdade, the whole area is important. (...) And even when they are temporary cameras rather than fixed cameras, as is the case today, when there is a football match and the organisers set up cameras temporarily,” he pointed out.

Regarding the long-standing intention to strengthen the powers of the Municipal Police, Carlos Moedas said that Maria Lúcia Amaral “understands the need for the Municipal Police, which is made up of PSP officers, to be able to make arrests while remaining an administrative police force”.

Carlos Moedas even asked the previous MAI to install video surveillance in areas of the city such as Martim Moniz, Mouraria, Arroios, São Domingos de Benfica and Avenida da Liberdade.

Lisbon currently has 64 video surveillance cameras in the city.

RCP/ADB // ADB.

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