Tiago Petinga / Lusa
National Defense Minister Nuno Melo
15 buildings and housing for 600 military personnel will be rehabilitated. Nuno Melo praises the “heritage recovery that is degraded”.
Army today signed an agreement to receive about 31 million euros from the recovery and resilience plan to create 427 dwellings through the recovery of 15 buildings, that will allow to host about 600 military personnel.
The agreement was signed in the extinct Army Uniform General Workshops in Lisbon, in a ceremony that was attended by the Ministers of National Defense, Nuno Melo, and Territorial Cohesion, Manuel Castro Almeida, and the Mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Coins.
Speaking to journalists, Nuno Melo stressed that these dwellings should be ready in July 2026 And they will be intended for temporary housing (about two or three years) for the military and their families, or civilians who work in the army, who will pay a monthly income of about 45 euros.
In total, 15 buildings will be rehabilitated – 13 for housing and two for teaching – in cities such as Lisbon, Porto, Leiria, News or Constancy.
“We are taking the first steps to the recovery of heritage that is degraded, but will be returned to cities. Will be delivered for housing and, in other cases, will be delivered to benefits of students“Nuno Melo stressed, referring to the requalification, provided for in this agreement in the teaching, the Military College and the Army Pupil Institute, both in Lisbon.
One of the buildings that will be recovered for housing is precisely the venue of the extinct army uniform workshops, where today the agreement was signed, which is about 10 minutes walk from Santa Apolónia railway station and where around will be created 54 rooms.
Nuno Melo stressed that it is “Greater investment ever” For the requalification of built of the Army and left criticism of the previous government, noting that, when he took office as minister, the slice of the Plan of Recovery and Resilience (PRR) intended for the army “was less than 300 thousand euros.”
“10 months later, what today we do means an investment of more than 31 million euros,” he said, adding that it is necessary to ensure that the PRR is executed.
“When resources are scarce, in a country like Portugal, we cannot disapprove of the PRR – and PRR was disapproved for much “But we can leave out the Armed Forces, because the Armed Forces, and the army in particular, are perhaps the largest owners of Portugal,” he said.
The minister also considered that this program will contribute to increase career attractiveness in the Armed Forces because the “housing is at the top of concerns” of the military.
In turn, the army chief of staff (CEME), General Eduardo Mendes Ferrão, considered that Today it was broken “the cycle of alienation of heritage” From the army and stressed that, for the first time, this armed forces branch can access “other sources of financing for the recovery and requalification of its built” beyond the state budget and the Military Infrastructure Law (LIM).
General Mendes Ferrão left criticism of the current Lim model, which he considered to create “serious embarrassment to the army, given the high unpredictability of both the annual amounts and the date of its availability to the army.”
“I note that, with the current financing model, through the LIM, which we are now changing, the army would need 39 years to rehabilitate only housing existing in the barracks, ”he said.
On the sidelines of the signature ceremony of this Agreement, the Minister of Defense was questioned by journalists if Portugal admits to send peace maintenance forces to Ukraine, but sent this response to the hearing that will have this afternoon in the Assembly of the Republic.
