At the closing session of the 21st edition of the PSD Summer University, Luís Montenegro announced that the government intends to give "a new boost to housing" this week and announced several measures.

As a first step, he announced that a credit line of an additional €1,300 million will be signed with the European Investment Bank (EIB) for affordable housing.

The government also wants to "go further" in the use of state assets, giving all public entities a deadline to explain why these assets are not being used.

"We're just fooling each other here; this will end. We will not watch public assets being degraded without use or justification. Where there is no justification, they must be made available for use, whether in the public or private sphere," he argued.

The prime minister explained that, when there is no justification for the lack of use, these assets will be transferred to the company that manages state properties, Estamo.

"In simple terms: we'll tell a state department, you have an abandoned house there, what do you want to do with it? Why is it abandoned? If there is no plan for it and if it is to remain abandoned, we will give it to Estamo, and they can build, rent, sell, and monetize it," he explained.

A third measure will be the creation of a single digital file that will, for now, bring together "all certified property documents," with the goal of, in the future, adding to this file "the property registry at the tax office and the property description at the land registry offices," so that citizens "will not have to collect paperwork or file requests at the administration."

Among the measures to be presented this week, the Prime Minister highlighted a fourth: the Government will "once and for all" define the role of each agency in the housing sector, giving the IHRU (Institute of Housing and Urban Rehabilitation) "the functions of coordination, regulation, and planning of public responsibilities in the housing sector in Portugal."

"We want the Banco Português de Fomento to be the partner in financing all operations that will make more homes available to individuals and families to rent and more homes to buy, at affordable prices," he added.

On the other hand, the "responsibility for implementing, owning, and managing public assets" will fall to local authorities, with the Prime Minister committing to providing municipalities with "technically and financially feasible conditions to promote sound management of the State's housing stock."

The Government also intends to continue negotiating to establish "a guarantee line within the scope of the Banco Português de Fomento" for the 133,000 public housing units included in the local housing strategies, accusing the previous Socialist administrations of not providing them with the resources.

Montenegro admitted that the challenge in the housing sector "is enormous, but it must be overcome and conquered."

"And it will be, I want to assure you here, it will be. It will take a few years, but it will be (...) Those who ask us for results in months, or even in a year or two, after having failed for more than a decade, they will have to be patient, because we will insist, we will decide and we will, patiently, with the Portuguese men and women, obtain the result", he assured.