which integrates 86 municipalities and a population of around 3.8 million inhabitants in a territorial area making up 33% of mainland Portugal. History History since the 1970s When Portugal emerged from years of dictatorship and the Carnation Revolution's turmoil in 1974, the level of access to services, the technologies used and the service quality were far from optimal. In particular, most municipal wastewater was discharged without any treatment at that time. However, substantial improvements have been achieved since then, in particular after Portugal's adhesion to the European Community (now the European Union) in 1986 which was accompanied by the gradual introduction of EU standards and financing by the European Investment Bank, the introduction of multi-municipal utilities and the holding company Águas de Portugal in 1993, and the creation of a regulatory agency for the sector in 2000. Portugal's membership of the European Community in 1986 and the EU Urban waste water framework directive of 1991 triggered a series of reforms undertaken by the government of then Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva in order to modernize the sector, to improve service quality and to effectively use EU funds destined to the sector. Until then service provision had been the sole responsibility of the municipalities, with the exception of the metropolitan area of Lisbon which was served by the multi-municipal company called Empresa Portuguesa das Águas Livres (EPAL). Many municipalities were small and did not have the financial or human resources to modernize their water and sanitation services. Furthermore, the need to buy water from sources located in other municipalities and to lower costs by constructing wastewater treatment plants serving several municipalities, provided incentives for municipalities to cooperate. Therefore, in 1993, the government introduced a policy to actively promote multi-municipal companies through Decree-law 379/93. The main vehicle to advance the reform process was the public Holding Company Águas de Portugal created in the same year, which was to be the majority owner of the newly created multi-municipal companies along with the participating municipalities. The government provided preferential access to EU structural funds to those municipalities that agreed to participate in the new multi-municipal companies, which were gradually created beginning in 1995. There was a strong continuity of sector policies, despite a change in government from the Social Democratic Party to the Socialist Party of Prime Minister António Guterres after the elections of 1995. In 2000 the government published the first strategic plan