a) To assist the Minister (MAOTDR) in the definition and execution of foreign policies with the European Union, other Governments and multilateral international organizations, within its competences;

b)To assist and ensure MAOTDR representation at international fora, in coordination with other services;

c) To co-ordinate, support and develop MAOTDR international activities with other countries and with international organizations, within the European Union framework;

d) To provide the technical and legal support needed to assist the Ministry in its negotiations with the European Union institutions and other international organizations;

e) To co-ordinate and support the activities related to cooperation for development particularly with countries where Portuguese is the official language;

f) To take part in the transposition of Community legislation on the environment into Portuguese law and to follow its implementation;

g) To promote and guarantee the co-ordination of international activities of the numerous MAOTDR services, as well as to ensure the co-ordination of MAOTDR with other Public Administration services;

h) To make available to the European Union institutions information related with the implementation of the EU legislation in the internal legal framework.

a) To identify the main global trends at an European and world level in economic, technological and environmental terms, relevant to the definition of strategies and public policies in the area of sustainable development;

b) To analyse the regional and metropolitan dynamics, as attractiveness, competitiveness and sustainable poles at world and European level, to identify those factors and policies;

c) To promote initiatives with national and foreign actors about new development opportunities and the attraction to of new activities and economic functions to the Portuguese economy;

d) To participate in foresight studies in order to evaluate natural and anthropogenic risks and to define the best strategies to mitigate their negative effects;

e) To develop skills and methodologies in the areas of foresight and scenarios, participating in their diffusion within Public Administration.

a) To analyse the Portuguese economic and social evolution, in terms of the position of Portugal in Europe, namely in what concerns competitiveness and sustainable development, as a contribute to development strategies;

b) To analyse Portuguese regional dynamics an economic attractiveness of cities and territories;

c) To evaluate the economic, social and environmental impact of public policies at the national, regional and sectoral levels;

d) To develop models and methodologies that can yield medium and long term quantified scenarios and projections;

e) To manage economic and social databases at national and regional level.

a) To participate in the process defining the MAOTDR public investment policy strategic framework;

b) To follow and monitor the implementation of the MAOTDR strategic priorities and to evaluate the matching between these priorities, their planning tools and the budget;

c) To implement the evaluation system applied to the Ministry\'s activities and to monitor its application.

a) To manage the human and financial resources, according to the approved budget;

b) To manage, in partnership with the General Secretary of the Ministry for Environmental Affairs, Spatial Planning and Regional Development (MAOTDR), the patrimony in equipments and goods;

c) To manage the information flows and the documentation unit;

d) To ensure the application of administrative rules;

e) To produce the annual and pluriannual plans and annual reports as well as to monitor their application;

f) To select, organize and disseminate all the documents and working papers produced by the DPP;

g) To organize events, such as workshops, conferences and seminars;

h) To organize the annual training program;

i) To provide legal advise to the Department;

j) To develop and implement information systems and databases, as well as to manage the information for the website and intranet;

k) To acquire and manage the hardware, software and communications network within DPP.