Welcome to the Official page of the Presidency of the Portuguese Republic

Honourable Speaker
Honourable Prime Minister
Members of Parliament
Ladies and Gentlemen

Exactly thirty two years ago, Portugal made a date with the future. That future is today. Commemorations are always a memory of the meeting of history with the calendar. And because commemorations are repeated, but history is not, this annual repetition could result in the risk of merely celebrating the repetition of the day and to increasingly lose sight of the sense of opening to history that marked our collective memory.

It has been tried throughout the years that this commemorative ceremony, the 32nd, should not remember so much the date but the history it encloses, and to use it for a moment’s reflection on our times.

In effect, no other day – excepting June 10 – is more appropriate to be taken as a crossroads between what was and what will come – between a yesterday and a tomorrow.

Within these guidelines I could take advantage from this my first visit to Parliament to take part in a session commemorating April 25, to underline how much Portugal has changed during the last 32 years. The vast number of rights and liberties that were consolidated by the democratic system, the progress achieved in so many diverse domains, the Country’s membership in the European Union and its assertion in the community of nations and many other undertakings that are a part of the assets of the Portuguese Nation.

In another reckoning, it could be justified, in this founding date of the democratic regime, to return to the challenge of the increase in the quality and credibility of our political system. I had the opportunity, in this same House, when I took office, to underline the responsibility which falls on the politicians, in the effort to improve our democracy and to reinforce the prestige of the institutions of the Republic and its incumbents.

In fact, the celebration of April 25 would be a propitious occasion to reflect on what we require from our political system, what we expect from the role and action of the political parties, what is demandable of the behaviour of the elected and other political operators, what must be done so that the people gain new confidence and respect for political activity and for the revival of democracy in order for it to provoke in Portuguese youth greater motivation and enthusiasm.

It seemed to me, however, more useful, when facing the legitimate representatives of other sovereign institutions and the regard of public opinion, to take a look at our society. To lead it to face the dreams that was the landmark of those April days, but that the current reality not only does not validate but in several ways is a challenge to us. I specifically refer to the dream of social justice, the building of a fairer and balanced society, in which the benefits of development would contemplate everybody.

Thirty two years after the revolution, the Portugal of this crossroads between the past and the future continues to be a country strongly marked by the duality of its development.

The progress recorded in some sectors of activity, the competitive capacity of many enterprises, the excellence of some centres of research and innovation, the quality of service of many institutions are undeniable. But it is also undeniable that those forefront experiments have not been able to impregnate all the economic and social fabric, with niches of modernity coexisting with expressions of unconcealed social and cultural archaism.

Deep disparities are revealed when looking at the country. The trench between the regions stamped by a peripheral rurality and the more urban areas is ever deeper. But, in their midst, those which have been able to maintain a human dimension emerge, providing satisfaction and well being to the inhabitants, contrasting with those which are true urban festers, a result of disorganization and irresponsibility, condemning the dwellers to a resigned inferior living, without quality or further horizons.

The crisis in the rural world is not a current event. It has been creeping up for decades, between cycles of resistance and abdication. The vast mass of the interior of the country solely represents 15% of the resident population.

Many policies were adopted, but none was able to stop people getting away, either to the coastal urban centres or to much further destinations, in a Diaspora which stubbornly persists.

We deceive ourselves by the existence of this or that social outfit, a result of the earnestness of the local authorities or of the good and true men that have not abandoned their lands, but we are lagging in seeking a route for sustainable development in the interior of the Country, that will highlight the existing poor resources, that combats abandonment of the land and attracts new material and human resources.

In the general picture of the sleepy small villages and towns of the interior, it is pleasing to find some signs of hope that we encounter at times. Portugal has to look at such signs, identify the practices that sustain them, recognize the efforts which economic, social and political operators have developed and, from there, outline a route so that all parties feel responsible and motivated for action. We must defeat the obstructions that have prevented our facing with success the double exclusion of ageing and poverty which afflicts the communities in the interior of Portugal.

But the most outstanding disparity that emerges from this Portugal which is moving in two gears is that which results from social inequalities. The dream of a free and democratic Country is inseparable from the ambition for a more developed society with greater social justice.

I believe I am able to state the general feeling when saying that we have made much progress in modernizing the economy and in asserting new life styles, but that we are greatly delayed in delivering that ambition for a society with more social justice.

Our Country is, within the European Union, that which shows greater inequality in the distribution of revenues. It is also that in which the forms of poverty are more persistent. These are structural characteristics which are weighed by the lagging in the qualification of human resources, by the weakness of our middle classes, by the low quality of employment and by the low level of pay in large sectors of our economy.

It is within the older population that we find the more concerning situations of exclusion. The risk of persistent poverty, which is relatively high in Portugal, greatly increases in the case of the elderly.

The effort that the State has been placing to diminish the effects of this social tableau must go on. It is not morally legitimate to ask for more sacrifices from those who have lived a whole life of privation.

After the family support structures were dissociated due to the social changes occurred in recent decades, many of yesterday’s pensioners have been confined to non-contributory pension schemes which cannot ensure a dignified living.

And the exclusion – the dimension of not belonging in which too many of our brother citizens find themselves – is so intolerable that, by contrast, the controversy generated around some small improvements to our rights, must be reduced to its due proportion. I mean the rights of those that are not excluded and the controversies over which too often political discussion is exhausted and the attention of public opinion is drained.

This is a weight which must always be present in our collective conscience – but also in each person’s conscience. The noblest and most eternal legacy of the History of this day, which we want to pass along to the new generations, is the ambition for a Country with more freedom, but also for a fairer society.

Thinking about those days filled with dreams and hopes, I well remember a poster where a boy placed a carnation in the barrel of a gun. The symbolism of that poster is undeniable, and it should be worth our while to question: how did that boy grow up? How do thousands of Portuguese children grow up? Are we cherishing the new generations?

I am concerned over the cases of children who are victims of negligence and of physical and psychological violence, which are regularly reported in the news. I notice the number of legal procedures initiated by the institutions established for their protection. I listen to the testimony of the anonymous citizen or of the professional person responsible for dealing daily with such cases, and I cannot but recognize that these same children are the weakest link of this chain that feeds exclusion. In its origin we will invariably find a demolished family, the very low schooling levels of the parents and, standing out even more, situations of addiction especially in terms of alcoholism.

It is in this same social tableau that we find other worrying signals: that of domestic violence, specifically that in which the victim is in most cases the woman. It is not worth while to hide this silenced reality which often escapes the attention of the institutions. More than anything else, it is an issue of human dignity for which there can be no tolerance or resignation.

We are all concerned with these symptoms. We know that the economic crisis tends to enhance such signals, mainly due to unemployment of men and women who, due to lack of schooling or advanced age, find greater difficulty in procuring new work. It is in these situations that the risk of social exclusion increases.

It is not enough to demand more measures or more money for this risk to be lessened. The delivery of that ambition of social justice, which does not have to become a utopia, passes by each one of us. We are all responsible; we all have to assume the proportion of social responsibility which is ours as citizens. Assume, as a collective objective, the protection of those who are, slowly and invisibly, sliding to the margins of a society which is required competitive and dynamic, but also fair and inclusive.

We have to break with conformity and complacency to relegate to the State the only solution to the problem.

We have to praise, through a new civic attitude, the example of thousands of citizens who, voluntarily and through institutions of social fellowship, find sense in such an objective.

But we also have the duty to recognize that the improvement in social justice, the fight against poverty and exclusion, demand that the Country again wins the battle of investment, of economic growth, of creation of wealth, without which the dream will continue postponed.

We must have in mind the concern that the last Council of Europe put forward when calling attention, and rightly so, to the interdependence which exists between economic growth, competitiveness, job creation, and social protection and inclusion.

Honourable Speaker
Members of Parliament

I do not want to limit myself to the diagnosis. I want to appeal for a wider and more coherent intervention in what, more than a number of individual dramas, is – and must be – a weight in our collective conscience.

I want to propose a civic commitment, a commitment for social inclusion.

A commitment which involves not only the political parties, but also congregates national institutions, local authorities, organizations of the civil society, from trade unions to civic associations and institutions of common fellowship. A commitment which embraces a number of principles and objectives to guide us in a collective action, aiming towards the more vulnerable social groups.

I am certain that, in relation to this objective of social inclusion – so fundamental to human dignity – it will be possible to identify the more serious issues and substitute the eternal ideological fight by a listing of priorities, targets and actions, with which every one can become identified and take part.

The preparation of the next National Action Plan for Inclusion must be used for an overall motivation, a true campaign on behalf of social inclusion. A plan which is able to overcome the traditional statement of measures, by defining a coherent strategy for a more promissory future.

This will be a step to substantiate that ambition of building a more developed society and simultaneously greater social justice.

Honourable Speaker
Members of Parliament

For those who lived it, celebrating April 25 means the revival of a precious thought, a memorial heritage and a landmark of our collective past.

But it also means to keep in sight the sense with which it is associated, the dream and the ambition without which it could only be any other date or a fortuitous sequence of isolated events.

Today we celebrate April 25.

April 25, 1974, when a people, under the impulse of a handful of soldiers, took their destiny into their own hands.

But also April 25, 1975, when the Portuguese, in free and democratic elections, clearly stated what they wanted and they did not want for Portugal.

And also April 26, 1976, the date when the Constitution of the Republic of Portugal came into force.

These are the three dates distinguished today which give a sense of future and modernism to our democracy.

These are the landmarks of a common past of which we are proud and which, when we celebrate, does not exempt us from always recalling the warning of the poet Ruy Belo:

“I would love to hear the chimes of the church clock
But that would be the past and it could be risky
To build upon it the future of our Country”

The current managers are of course, responsible for the routes to be followed, but it is where those routes will lead us that will bring them, or not, the recognition of the new generations.

We were able to substantiate the dream of a Portugal with freedom and greater prosperity, but we are still far from delivering our wish for greater social justice.

The Portuguese expect the politicians which they freely and democratically elected, to rise to that demand, that they strive to provide a new hope for the more disadvantaged members of our society, that they cooperate in order to more easily overcome difficulties and their natural ideological differences.

If we can attain this, we will be deserving of the recognition of a future memory.

And that is my ambition.