We dare to think of the future when difficult times are with us.

The intransigency of the future must not prevent us from going further.

We are all well aware of the difficulties that Portugal and the Portuguese are experiencing in the current context of the economic and financial crisis.

Public opinion may be divided as to the diagnoses and as to finding the best means of emerging.

There is however a very broad consensus over the issues that, in the short term, must be resolved.

We were able to create a large political convergence over the issue of a financial aid that was anyway inevitable.

We have a State budget for 2012 that, notwithstanding the hardness of the measures it contains, obtained the support of a parliamentary majority and the abstaining vote of the major opposition party.

We succeeded in obtaining a tripartite agreement between the Government, the Unions ad the Industry Associations, in which the reforms that were considered indispensable for the improvement of the competitiveness of our economy were consecrated.

Both the international institutions and our European partners were positive in their assessment of our being able to carry out the assumed commitments. They recognize the great sacrifices that are being demanded from the Portuguese and emphasize their sense of responsibility and their will to overcome the inherent difficulties.

It is however necessary to view the future beyond the schedule of the programme of adjustment and to build a much longer term vision.

A vision beyond the political and party policy cycles.

A vision that will muster us and fundamentally brings us together.

If we are currently living as well as it is possible, we should not set aside the dream to build a future of which we can be proud.

If we are unable to accept resignation in the face of difficult times, the future demands from all of us the ambition to build the pillars of a stronger, fairer and more prosperous Portugal, credible and respected in the international stage.

This is why it is urgent to promote a prospective and multidisciplinary reflection over the issues of Portuguese society.

And this is the main objective of the Routes to the Future. To encourage the Portuguese to reflect on the Portugal that we want to bequeath to future generations.

We are not concerned with listing solutions or with announcing either measures or policies.

That is the responsibility of the sovereign bodies whose duties are to legislate and to govern the Country.

We want to become aware of Portugal’s issues in all their complex dimensions. We want to be aware of where we are headed to. These are the only means through which we can construe aims, establish objectives and choose the best courses to reach them.

The purpose of these new Routes is to help those who take decisions and to sensitize Portuguese public opinion as to the urgency to look forward, towards the long term, and to build, jointly, an intrinsic aspiration.

The aspiration of who knows what to achieve and how to reach it.

For this first Conference we chose a topic that has long been a concern of mine.

On 1 January 2008, in my New Year’s message, I called the attention of the Portuguese for the extremely low rate of birth that was being recorded in our Country. I then stated: “if children are not born, it is our collective future that is in question”.

“To be born in Portugal” is, before anything else, a challenge for us to ponder over what we are but, above all, what we want and can be.

Portugal, similarly to many European countries, is facing an issue of demographic sustainability and, along with it, other emerging problems: human desertification of large territorial tracts, the decline of our productive potential, the continuity of the so called Welfare State, the degradation of the principle of solidarity between generations, in effect, the weakening of the fundamental bonds that bring cohesion to Portuguese society.

These are issues that require strictness, scientific intellect and a sense of future in their approach.

This is why we decided to bring together the national scientific community that has reflected over these issues and invite some of the best European researchers, in order that we could jointly be able to identify its causes, understand the inherent social and cultural contexts and, if possible, draw up the scenarios that could originate their resolution.

The trend in the decline in fertility is not an exclusively Portuguese phenomenon.

It is, before all else, a European issue. For this reason, it is necessary that we privilege comparative analysis and, from this point, identify the instances of best practises within the area of public policies.

I am fundamentally hopeful upon the contribution of our guests, upon the help they can bring us. I thus wish to thank you for your availability.

I am very grateful for the foreign researchers that have honoured us with their attendance.

To the Portuguese researchers I must state that I wish they would perceive this initiative of mine as a public recognition of the effort they have placed on the research, analysis and reflection over these themes.

One last word to the young researchers now amongst us.

I fondly hope that this Conference may be a stimulus for your initiating or continuing a research career that undertakes these and other topics that are equally decisive for the future of Portugal.

To you all I wish a stimulating conference and useful results.

Thank you very much