Citizen participation, stakeholder involvement and the planning process in Portugal

Over the past thirty years, Portugal has experienced wide transformations in its planning system, resulting from the incorporation of principles and policy agendas mandated by the EU, established practices in other countries, or from the diffusion of "home-grown" experiences. Despite increased dissemination of principles of decentralization, democratization, efficiency and sustainable development, plans have maintained an ineffective regulatory nature, instead of serving as strategic processes to rethink what we would like our territory to be.