Costa invites young people to return to Portugal

António Costa during a visit to Vila Real as part of next month's mayoral elections. To invite young people to return to Portugal, stressing that they "are welcome" and will have "more support" if they return inland.

Costa invites young people to return to Portugal

"Now that we're turning the page on the pandemic, now that we've started to move towards normality and thanks to vaccination, the pandemic seems to be under control and now that worldwide circulation is starting to pick up again, it's time to tell the young people who left to come back because they're welcome," said the Prime Minister.

António Costa also added that if young people "return to the interior regions, they will have more support", as part of the programa RegressarThis is where "the demographic effort is most needed".

"We will broaden, deepen and improve the programa Regressar by supporting all those who have had to leave, especially in recent years, and now want to return," he stressed.

In his speech in the district capital, Costa reinforced the message he had reiterated at the event inland tourThe meeting, which began in Bragança and ended on Sunday in Guarda, on the demographic challenge and the role of this territory in the new peninsular centralized.

"While this demographic challenge is a general one for the country as a whole, it is obviously more intense in low-density areas and in the territories of the interior and border regions and, consequently, the effort here must be a greater effort and this effort implies, first of all, that we achieve this objective that we defined in 2015 and which is to transform the border regions into new centralities in the Iberian space", he stressed.

He recalled that, for the first time after four decades of joint participation in the European Union, Portugal and Spain "will present to Brussels a joint program for the development of the entire border region" between the two countries.

António Costa also stated that it is necessary to continue attracting businesses to the interior, "creating the conditions to make the CRI more attractive in these regions, to continue the effort to reduce tolls in these territories" and stressed that the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) "provides exclusively for the interior regions a significant investment in the areas of business location".

Finally, he also pointed out that around 3,000 "highly skilled" jobs have been created, out of the 3,800 initially planned in the program, and stressed that this plan is being stepped up to create a further 20,000 highly skilled jobs in the interior by 2023.