On 5 July, the Portuguese parliament has approved Portugal's “National Spatial Policy Programme” (PNPOT). This legal instrument for spatial planning and territorial management was defined in 1998 by the last legal planning framework, the Urban and Spatial Planning Law. It was conceived as a policy program and not as a traditional land use or zoning plan. Although elaborate under the responsibility of the minister of spatial planning and cities, the PNPOT is a document of the government binding all the sectors of the public administration, and its importance is given by the obligatory approval by parliament.