The Law of the Guy from Alfama
The Law of Parkinson states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. The Law of Hanlon advises against attributing to malice what can be explained by stupidity. The Law of Upton Sinclair asserts that it is difficult for someone to understand something when their salary depends on not understanding it. To these universal laws, we can add a national one, which we will call the Law of the Guy from Alfama, in honour of Gato Fedorento: whenever there are problems in a certain sector of the State, new macrostructures are created without substantially changing the elements that compose them and from which the problems arise. Examples can be found in Health, Internal Security, and information services, among others. Logistically, the essence of this law could be summarised as: “Put more money and more people into it, and things will be resolved.” This may sound dismissive, but part of the arguments in favour of regionalisation—more macrostructures—after the disaster that struck the West region do not invite sophistication. They suggest that the enemies of regionalisation are people from Lisbon, snobs, or even snobs from Lisbon. Instead of insinuations, let us be revolutionary: let us look at a regionalised country and draw conclusions. Just cross the border. With 17 autonomous regions—thus, 17 regional governments, 17 Regional Parliaments, and many autonomous bodies—Spain has a deep, almost federal regionalisation, one of the most advanced in Europe. The conclusions are many, but let us focus on two aspects that fuel the discussion in Portugal. First, development. Before regionalisation, the poorest territories in Spain were Extremadura and Andalusia. After 50 years of intense and continuous regionalisation, which regions are the poorest? Extremadura and Andalusia. In other words, regionalisation is not a silver bullet against regional asymmetries; it tends to exacerbate them, compromising territorial cohesion. Second, crisis management. Serious challenges to the safety of people and property—such as the disaster caused by DANA in Valencia in October 2024, which killed over 200 people—expose the vices and pitfalls of a regionalised territory. Coordination among agencies is difficult, and resource management is slow. The competition between the central government and regional governments, normal in a regionalised country, often descends into rivalries that hinder the State's action. Moreover, it can lead to the most abject political exploitation when the central and regional Executives are led by opposing parties in highly polarised contexts. There are cases where this second point has led to the first. Take covid-19, for instance. Within the strict scope of their competencies, regional governments adopted very different confinement policies, some lax and others restrictive, resulting in asymmetric layoffs, unemployment, and investment attraction, deepening economic imbalances. As confinements affected rights and freedoms, there were moments when Spain objectively had first, second, and third-class citizens. In summary, proposing to resolve Portugal's problems through regionalisation is essentially having faith in the Virgin. Doing so in the wake of a severe crisis is akin to believing that Americans would win in Iraq because they had a bomb that could smell curry. Written without the application of the new Orthographic Agreement.
