Pizarro wants to hand over the Culture portfolio to the CCDR-N vice president

The current vice-president of CCDR-N, Jorge Sobrado, is the choice of the PS candidate for Porto City Council, Manuel Pizarro, for the Culture portfolio, the socialist candidate confirmed to Lusa this Friday.

“It is a huge source of pride for me and a very strong reason for confidence for Porto that someone as qualified as Jorge Sobrado has accepted my invitation to be the future councilor for culture (…), a person with municipal experience, in Viseu and Porto, and with experience that goes far beyond local authorities, from the point of view of public administration in the CCDR”, declared Manuel Pizarro.

Jorge Sobrado's name will be announced this Friday at 11:30 a.m. at the Palácio de São João Novo, a "symbolic" location. Sobrado was responsible for announcing, in 2023, a restructuring of the then City Museum (now the Porto Museum) and the creation of a previously non-existent central hub, which will be housed in the Palácio de São João.

"The Porto Museum is one of the major projects we will present for the future. And by choosing to present our future councilor for culture at the location where we want to locate the Porto Museum, we are also sending a strong signal of the centrality we attribute to the Porto Museum," the socialist shared with Lusa.

Jorge Sobrado, a graduate in Communication Sciences, was director of the Porto Museum and Libraries between December 2022 and February 2024, a position he left to assume the vice-presidency of the Northern Regional Coordination and Development Commission (CCDR-N).

Even earlier, between 2017 and 2021, he was a councilor responsible for Culture at Viseu City Council, where he had worked since 2013, as deputy to the then president of the municipality, the social democrat António Almeida Henriques (1961-2021).

In 2013, the Porto City Council's Culture portfolio was assigned to Paulo Cunha e Silva. After his death in 2015, the mayor, Rui Moreira, took over this portfolio, which he currently holds alongside the Economy and Transport portfolios.