Squeezed by austerity and pressured to recover costs: Portugal’s municipal water operators in need of public bank finance

Abstract

This article maps the relationship between public banks and municipal water operators in Portugal. Multilateral public banks play a central role in financing the sector. However, access to public banking finance plays out unevenly across Portugal’s heterogenous water landscape. While the state-owned bulk system appears to face no shortage of finance, there is evidence of a financing crisis at the municipal level, where austerity and pressures to recover costs through tariffs serve as obstacles to bank borrowing. With a new public financial institution in the making, the article argues that new public–public financing relationships should be explored.