“One of the main proposals that we are working on and moving forward with in this period of the pandemic is to take advantage of the opportunity given to us, which is the fact that the local accommodations do not have a significant number of customers today, to rent and lease these accommodations , so that we can then sublet them to middle-class families and young people”, said the mayor, who participated in the Euragora 2020 debate on “Tourism in times of Covid-19”, organised by the Lusa and EFE news agencies.

"We cannot recover from this pandemic with the same problems that we had at the beginning of the pandemic, be it the problems of congestion, pollution, or the problems in accessing housing," defended Fernando Medina.

“Now what we are doing is trying to turn this difficulty into an opportunity. For what? To have more people living in the city, younger people, more middle classes, a more cohesive city, more supportive with more people living in the centre of Lisbon”, stressed Fernando Medina.

Promoting housing in the city centre is also, according to the president of CML, a way to reduce commuting and, consequently, pollution, since people start to use their cars less, travelling on foot, by public transportation or even by bicycle.