During a parliamentary hearing, the Minister of Culture, Youth, and Sport, Margarida Balseiro Lopes, acknowledged that officials are considering an alternative site to house the National Costume Museum in Lisbon, which has remained closed since 2024 for rehabilitation works under the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR).

When questioned by the Chega party, the Minister conceded that the building has very serious structural problems that forced the closure of several floors, and that, to date, workers have carried out interventions only in the gardens.

Citing the public institute for Cultural Heritage, Chega MP Patrícia Carvalho stated that no one secured an execution plan for intervention works at the museum that matched the PRR timeline.

The National Costume Museum, which houses about 40,000 items, opened in 1977 in the Angeja-Palmela Palace in Lumiar, Lisbon.

During the parliamentary hearing, Margarida Balseiro Lopes further revealed that the National Archaeology Museum (MNA) and the National Theatre of São Carlos (TNSC) require additional funding to complete their rehabilitation works, as the PRR only allowed partial interventions.

“With the PRR alone, neither of these facilities will be able to open,” the Minister stated, adding that “additional funding will be secured” to complete the works, totalling approximately 27 million euros for the MNA and 17.5 million euros for the TNSC. According to Margarida Balseiro Lopes, these 17.5 million euros for the TNSC pertain to the so-called "Phase 3" of the construction works, intended for "interventions in the buildings adjacent to the main one", specifically, technical work areas, "without which" the cultural venue cannot reopen.

This "Phase 3" will only begin after the preceding phases of the National Theatre's rehabilitation, carried out under the scope of the PRR, have been completed; the scheduled completion date for these phases is August 30, she stated.

The National Museum of Archaeology has been closed since April 2022, and the National Theatre of São Carlos since the summer of 2024.

According to the Transparency Portal, the works at the TNSC under the PRR framework were allocated a budget of €26.87 million, while those at the MNA amount to approximately €19.89 million.

On 8 May, Cultural Heritage, a public institute, revealed to the Lusa news agency that the execution of works funded by the PRR had shown "very positive progress" over the past year, with €230 million already awarded in contracts, equivalent to 96% of the projected investment.

One year ago, on 28 May, 2025, Dalila Rodrigues, Margarida Balseiro Lopes’ predecessor as Minister of Culture, publicly stated that the works at the MNA and TNSC "will never be left unfinished."

"The interventions at the National Theatre of São Carlos and the National Museum of Archaeology constitute national imperatives that any government embraces, and will continue to embrace, without hesitation. Therefore, the works on these two national institutions, which are so vital to our cultural life, will never be left incomplete," Dalila Rodrigues affirmed at the time.

The PRR is a European-wide funding mechanism designed to support structural reforms in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.