At an Art Biennial on the Minho, President Seguro Argues That No Portuguese Territory Is Dispensable

President António José Seguro spent Sunday morning in Vila Nova de Cerveira, the Minho border town of fewer than 9,000 people that has hosted Portugal's longest-running art biennial since 1978, and used the visit to make a case for the parts of the country that empty out. "A country's cohesion is not measured by the strength of its capitals, but by the vitality of its territories," he said at the câmara municipal, adding that "there are no dispensable territories in Portugal".

Seguro asked for "more attention, more investment and more confidence" from the State towards interior and raia (border) councils facing depopulation, an ageing population and distance from the places where decisions are made. Municipalities, he argued, understand their own communities better than central government does, and should be trusted accordingly. On the frontier itself he was blunt: it should be "a border that unites and does not separate".

The Biennial as the argument

The occasion was the XXIV Bienal Internacional de Arte de Cerveira (Cerveira International Art Biennial), which runs from 18 July to 30 December under the theme "Territórios sem Fronteira" (Borderless Territories). The international competition selected 41 works and five artistic interventions from 41 artists of 16 nationalities, with €50,000 in acquisition prizes funded by the town council. This edition pays tribute to Silvestre Pestana, a leading figure in Portuguese contemporary art, and its Transbordo cycle brings in two guest cities: Santiago de Compostela, an hour and a half up the road, and Luanda.

Seguro used the event as evidence for his own point, saying it shows that cultural excellence is not the preserve of the big centres. It is a fair example. Cerveira built a permanent art museum and a foundation around an event that started as a summer show in a small riverside town, and the Biennial now runs for five and a half months rather than a fortnight.

An argument with a budget behind it

The President has no spending power, and the language of attention and confidence is the language available to the office. But the timing is not accidental. The Orçamento do Estado (State Budget) for 2027 must reach Parliament by 10 October, and the interior lobby traditionally spends late summer making its case: on transport links, on health cover, on the tax differentials that apply to low-density municipalities, and on whether decentralisation transfers arrive with the money attached.

Culture is one of the few places where that argument has produced something concrete recently. Portugal's €72.84 million arts-grant cycle, opening for applications this week, carries a programming strand designed partly to keep venues alive outside Lisbon and Porto. The Minho itself has had a busy month: Viana do Castelo, half an hour south, counted more than 110,000 people at the Romaria d'Agonia parade this week, with the President in the stand.

What this means for residents

• The border is a two-way market. Cerveira faces Tomiño across the Minho and sits inside Galicia's commuting range. Residents there use Spanish supermarkets, hospitals and airports as a matter of routine, and the political language is now catching up with that.
• Low-density incentives are live. Interior and raia councils carry their own tax and grant regimes for businesses and, in some cases, for people relocating. Anyone weighing a move inland should check the specific municipality rather than assume a national rule.
• Cultural infrastructure follows funding cycles. The Biennial runs to 30 December, so there is no rush, but small-town programming depends on grant rounds that are decided in the autumn.
• Watch the October budget. Whether any of this turns into money for interior councils will be visible in the State Budget documents, not in speeches.

Seguro closed on a line that will travel further than the policy: being small in population, he said, is not the same as being small in ambition. Cerveira has roughly the population of a single Lisbon parish, and an art biennial in its 48th year.