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Honourable Prime Minister,
Honourable Members of the National Commission for the Celebrations of the Centenary of the Republic,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Celebrations of the Centenary of the Republic will be one of the most important civic and cultural Portuguese undertakings in the near future.

2010 is a year which is rushing towards us and this requires that we approach the issue quickly and dynamically. But, at the same time, serenely and, above all, with the greatness that the Republic demands of us all.

The National Commission for the Celebrations of the Centenary of the Republic faces a very important and responsible task: to conceive and carry out a Programme which will muster all the Portuguese. The Centenary of the Republic must be a joyful and festive celebration, which will not give rise to artificial or divisive rifts which are not appropriate in the specific environment of the celebrations of the Republic.

The merits of Dr. Artur Santos Silva as a jurist and a manager, his culture of humanism, the capabilities he has shown in the coordination of very large cultural projects, his civic and ethical qualifications will all ensure that, under his chairmanship, the Commission will successfully achieve the mission with which it has been entrusted.

No one will have any doubts that the remaining members of the Commission, whose merits are publicly recognized, will carry out their honourable tasks independently and as a team, with a sole objective: to contribute towards a dignified celebration of the Centenary of the Republic, bringing the Portuguese together in a unified collective ideal which now celebrates its one hundredth anniversary.

Rather than a form of Government, the Republic is a project of citizenship. It is with this sense that the Republic must be celebrated: as an ethical ideal, as an example of the civic virtues of loyal dedication to the Country and of government by merit.
It is important that all Portuguese see themselves as being part of these celebrations. The one hundred years of the Republic must after all, constitute a motive for us to muster around our collective objectives.

Pluralism is a Republican ideal and, as such, pluralism must also be respected in this case. The Republic is not representative of a triumph of one group over another. Republican spirit, born specifically to end with privileges, does not have exclusive owners or privileged protagonists.

The Celebrations of the Republic have, naturally, a historic component, a remembrance of the past, the revisiting of a memory. But it is essential that the celebrations have a prospective sense, guided towards the future. In addition to the impassive and objective knowledge of such an important marker of our Contemporary History, there is work to be carried out in the approach of the civic society to the Republic’s political institutions, such as is anyway written into the legislation which set up the organizational structure of these Celebrations.

In close liaison with the Consultative Commission, I am certain that the National Commission for the Celebrations of the Centenary of the Republic will know how to find a fair balance between the historical angle and the projection for the future, between the scientific and the civic components of the Celebrations of the Republic.

More than the surrounding ideologies or differing ways of seeing the world, it is in the universe of ethical values and virtues that the Republic must be celebrated, because that is where its essence and perenniallity reside.

As President of the Republic and President of the Honorary Commission for the Celebrations of the Centenary, I congratulate the Commission that has just been empowered and wish it the greatest success in the performance of the tasks with which it has been entrusted.

Thank you very much.