Interpretative Center of 25 April will be in a building of the CML

O Interpretative Center of 25 April will be created in a building belonging to the City Council of Lisbon near Campo das Onbolas, said today Colonel Vasco Lourenço, a solution found after an impasse with the executive.

The information was confirmed to Lusa by the president of the Association 25 April, Vasco Lourenço, after being initially advanced by the Express weekly.

In an internal communication to the members of the association, Vasco Lourenço points out that “the solution found for the implementation of the Interpretative Center of April 25 is a building belonging to the CML [Câmara Municipal de Lisboa], next to Campo das Onbolas (Rua Instituto Virgilio Machado, 10, Lisbon)”.

The building, adds the person responsible, lacks a “deep intervention”.

The Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, “has made a commitment that the government will bear all the necessary expenses, either in the renovation of the building or in the implementation of the Interpretative Centre”, reads the message.

On the part of the President of the Republic, António José Seguro, the colonel stresses “the confirmation of his full commitment to the creation of a worthy and capable Interpretative Centre”.

The responsible adds that “conversations between the Government, the Lisbon City Council and the Association 25 April” are planned on the subject.

The question about the location of the interpretative center dedicated to the Carnation Revolution generated a deadlock between the end of last year and the beginning of this one, after the Association 25 of April accused the PSD/CDS-PP Government of missing the commitment to create an interpretative center in the place initially foreseen, assumed by the former PS executive, led by António Costa.

Vasco Lourenço accused the executive of having decided “in a unilateral and arbitrary way, not to fulfill the official commitment” to install the Interpretative Center of April 25 at the current premises of the Ministry of Internal Administration (MAI), in Praça do Comércio, in Lisbon.

In September of last year, the then President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, said he understood the concern of the Association 25 April, but ensured that the Government had not given up building this space.

At the beginning of this year, in April, after the impasse over space had arisen again in the media, the government said it kept the opening to find solutions for the installation of the center, after considering it unfeasible to install it in the MAI premises.

The executive pointed out that “in the dialogue with the entities involved, alternatives of location were suggested, namely the widespread use of another of the most symbolic spaces in this area, located in Pontinha”, municipality of Odivelas, where the building of the command post of the Armed Forces Movement, responsible for conducting military operations against the dictatorship is located

At the time, the Association 25 April criticized this location and said that it hoped that the meanwhile elected President of the Republic, António José Seguro, would resolve the impasse. This Tuesday, the National Commission of the Mission Structure for Celebrations of the 50th Anniversary of the Revolution of 25 April met at the Palace of Belém, with the presence of the Prime Minister.