European Local Democracy Week ends in Cascais

The event included initiatives in the municipality's four parishes The celebration of the European Week of Local Democracy (EDLD) in the municipality of Cascais came to an end on Wednesday 4 December. The last day of the event was marked by a guided visit by the municipality's student associations to the Town Museum, located in the Cascais Town Hall. At the end of the visit, the young people went to the Salão Nobre, where they took part in the ‘À Conversa Com...’ session, in which they asked questions of the representatives of the local authorities of the municipality of Cascais, on a variety of topics. Democracy is a value that we have to defend. It's much better to live in a democracy than in a dictatorship,’ said Carlos Carreiras, Mayor of Cascais, who answered the questions of the young secondary school students. This year, the motto of the European Local Democracy Week was ‘Together We Build Democracy’, an event being celebrated for the fifth year running in Cascais. The initiative kicked off on 30 October with activities in the four parishes of the municipality: União das Freguesias de Carcavelos e Parede, Junta de Freguesia de São Domingos de Rana, União das Freguesias de Cascais e Estoril, and Junta de Freguesia de Alcabideche. We were delighted to welcome the European Local Democracy Week to Cascais. Thank you all for taking part and we'll be here again next year!’ said José D'Almeida, councillor for Citizenship and Participation at Cascais City Council. The European Local Democracy Week is a pan-European event that aims to stimulate local democracy, citizen participation and bring citizens closer to local government. This is an initiative coordinated by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe. Also present on the final day of the event were Nuno Piteira Lopes, vice-president of Cascais City Council, Frederico Pinho de Almeida, Frederico Nunes and Francisco Kreye, city councillors, José Filipe Ribeiro, president of Alcabideche Parish Council, and representatives from the Cascais and Estoril Parish Union and São Domingos de Rana Parish Council.