Lisbon mayor Carlos Moedas suspends council meeting over Rossio cleaning costs

What happened

Lisbon mayor Carlos Moedas (PSD) suspended a city council meeting on Wednesday, 4 November, after councillors pressed him on what cleaning the Rossio square had cost. According to the Bloco de Esquerda, the session had opened at 09:30 at the Paços do Concelho, and Moedas suspended it before the agenda was reached. Opposition councillors Ricardo Moreira (Bloco de Esquerda) and Pedro Anastácio (Socialist Party) said they did not believe the figures he had put forward and asked for data. Moedas then left the room, and vice-president Gonçalo Reis took over the proceedings. The council confirmed the suspension in a statement to PÚBLICO, giving its reason:

“the mayor suspended the council meeting due to the inappropriate behaviour of an opposition councillor.”

The meeting resumed around 11:30 without the mayor. The opposition had lodged an appeal arguing that the suspension broke the council's rules. The PSD, CDS-PP and IL majority voted against it, while the remaining councillors voted in favour, so the appeal was rejected.

The cleaning cost figures

In his weekly slot on the Now TV channel, Moedas had put the cost of cleaning the statue of Dom Pedro IV at about 100,000 euros. He said the cleaning crews needed over two or three days had cost the council that sum:

“I would like to tell Lisbon residents that it cost the council 100,000 euros.”

Diário de Notícias reported that Moedas had earlier given a figure of 130,000 euros and then revised it upward at the meeting to 150,000 euros, the amount the opposition cited. The council explained that the figure covers the total cleaning of Praça D. Pedro IV and the surrounding area, an operation lasting four days at 25,000 euros a day that included staff, vehicles and equipment, as it told the Polígrafo website. Pedro Anastácio responded in a statement to Lusa:

“Carlos Moedas cannot explain the costs of cleaning the graffiti on the statue.”

Moedas on Now TV (weekly slot)100,000

Municipality spend to 20 October 2026 (told to court)101,866.7

Cost cited at the meeting (per opposition)150,000

Moedas on Now TV (weekly slot)

100000 euros

Municipality spend to 20 October 2026 (told to court)

101866.7 euros

Cost cited at the meeting (per opposition)

150000 euros

Data from the article text

Court ruling

The Lisbon administrative court ruled on Monday, 2 November, in a case brought by a protester against the Ministry of Internal Administration and the municipality. The court listed as an unproven fact that about 100,000 euros had been spent cleaning the statue. It noted that the municipality itself had told the court it had spent 101,866.70 euros on graffiti cleaning on the statue up to 20 October 2026. The court recorded as proven that the statue suffered damage and vandalism, including offensive phrases and anarchist symbols painted on it and objects placed on the allegorical figures at the base of the pedestal.

Socialist request and council reply

Municipal deputy Hugo Gaspar of the Socialist Party said the party would send an urgent request to the council for the cleaning contract. He argued that the statue had cost 2,300 euros to clean two years earlier and that the cost now stood at 50 times that amount. Rodrigo Mello Gonçalves of Liberal Initiative told Lusa that municipal assembly members would already have the contracts with the graffiti-cleaning firms, because they were voted on during the previous term.