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I was very pleased to accept the invitation to visit the County of Borba, and to attend the inaugural act of this new facility of the Holy Almshouse.

Borba, a city located in the deep interior of our country has its name linked to one of the more representative wine cellars of the Alentejo region, and I have just had the opportunity of viewing its most recent investment.

It is an outstanding infrastructure, aiming towards the modernization and the strengthening of the international position of an enterprise that brings together 300 associated vineyard owners, is nowadays an overriding institution in this region and is essential to the economic and social development of the County.

The decades old experience of Borba Cooperative Wine Cellar, a reference to the quality of the Wines of the Alentejo and striding towards its sixtieth anniversary, is now allied, with this recent investment, to advanced technology and innovation.

My best congratulations are due to the Borba Wine Cellars and to its Directors for having overcome the challenge of assertion and growth of the enterprise.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The celebration of the 490 years of age of the Borba Holy Almshouse is an opportunity for us to give our thoughts to the role that these institutions of social solidarity can and must assume in the social economy of the regions which are risking human desertification.

The number of children in Borba County, in the last 50 years, has been reduced by 70%. This was set off by a fourfold increase in the number of aged people.

It is thus understood that the Borba Holy Almshouse has turned the greater part of its efforts to the support of its aged population.

It is totally fair that local communities do not forget the most fragile segments of their people and provide them, once their lifework, often with great hardship, has ended, with conditions to enjoy their aging with dignity and wellbeing.

But it is necessary to look very closely at the demographic sustainability of these communities, towards the conditions of safety and stability that enable families to ensure the renewal of generations.

The concept of the Social Village is a step in that direction, comprising in the same area of conviviality the successive Borba generations, in order to create the indispensable community spirit, where the elders may transmit to the younger the values and the bases of the local identity, thus allowing them to gain affection for the land where they grew up and where it is important that they continue to live.

I salute and congratulate the Officers of the Borba Almshouse for the determination and drive that they are showing, endeavouring to meet the needs for wellbeing and active ageing of the County’s population, as well as for their initiative in creating this area where the present and the future can meet.

Mister Mayor,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

The County of Borba maintains its dynamism in that which are the identifying features of its economic activity: the production of wine and olive oil, the marble industry.

The effort towards internationalization that the entrepreneurs of this County have been developing deserves public recognition, due to the potential that it may represent for the demographic regeneration of the interior regions.

Without the international prominence of the region’s products it will not be possible to consolidate the local productive base and, without this, it will be nigh impossible to keep up economic and social dynamism and ensure renewal of the generations.

The new Community Support Framework will be, in this respect, an opportunity that cannot be squandered.

As I have been pointing out, this multiannual 2014-2020 framework comprises a reinforcement of the appropriations for the lesser developed regions of the country, focused on the objective of company competitiveness and on their development, growth and job creation.

This is a national priority.

This is an effort that aims, after all, towards the materialization of an ambition that calls upon us all: territorial cohesion.

And, naturally, local authorities have an irreplaceable role in this effort.

Our country’s local authorities are bound to ally their deep and direct knowledge of the needs of the County’s population and its potentialities with a vision of the future and a mustering creativity. And this is what is being achieved by the Borba County Council.

The work with entrepreneurs and young people, the appeal to entrepreneurship and to investment are essential in order that this new opportunity provided by European integration does not go to waste.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I reiterate my thanks for the invitation to join you here in Borba and renew my congratulations to the Almshouse for this new facility at the service of the people of Borba.

It is my wish that the city and the County may achieve development, creating sustainable wealth and employment, in order that these children, who welcomed us today, grow up here and have available the conditions to stay on.

It is an appeal and an incentive I leave with you, to creativity, to innovation, to entrepreneurship, to taking advantage of the much that is good that this land has to offer us. It is a task that pertains to all of us.

Thank you.