When commemorating the 25th April, we celebrate the victory of freedom over dictatorship, of democracy over totalitarianism.

In 1974, a revolution was necessary to change the regime. Later, however, it was necessary to build a new regime, a democratic regime. When celebrating the 25th April, we salute those who had the courage to change the regime, but also the architects of a new era, the artisans of our democracy.

The democratic regime is now consolidated because good sense prevailed over adventurism, because the sense of responsibility was stronger than extremist temptations.

At the time, it was essential for the consolidation of the new regime, that Portugal should externally project the image of a free and responsible country, a State that could be fully integrated in the international community and merit the respect of other nations.

Through a difficult path, after overcoming numerous obstacles, we were able, in few years, to change the regime, to carry out free elections, to write a Constitution that is still in force today, and adhere with full rights to the European Communities.

We chose the right option. But, above all for the younger people, it is necessary to recall that the path followed could have been different. Portugal could have deepened its isolation in the international stage if by chance the sense of responsibility had not triumphed with the support of the people, unequivocally expressed in the elections for the Constitutional Assembly.

Strenuous work was necessary to demonstrate our credibility internationally as a sovereign State. There were many, at the time, who took an active part in the collective task to explain Portugal to the outside world. We did so successfully.

Madam Speaker,
Members of Parliament,

More than three decades after the 25th April, the Portuguese are again called upon to explain Portugal to the world and to value the best we have in the most diverse areas.

In current circumstances, exports, tourism and productive private investment are the main components capable of positively contributing to economic recovery and creation of employment.

It is well known that export levels and those of private investment depend upon multiple factors. Today I want to concentrate on one of these, generally little referred to: the image and the credibility of Portugal abroad.

In this regard, all Portuguese, and not just the politicians, are duty bound to show the world the value of their Country. On this 25th April, my intervention in this ceremony has a precise objective and a practical reason: incite our fellow citizens to correct the lack of information or even disinformation that subsists abroad about the country that we are. If we can do so successfully, we will be contributing to improve the conditions for the growth of our economy and for the creation of employment.

Through a true and positive external view of Portugal, we will be able to sell more goods and services produced in the Country at better prices, we will be able to attract more external investment, and obtain external finance in better terms.

We will be able to strengthen tourism, capture emigrant remittances, and assert scientific institutions and the Portuguese researchers in the international knowledge and innovation networks.

It has been well known, and for quite some time, that a Country’s image is an essential factor for its success. To supply a realistic and positive picture of Portugal is a national objective, which must muster entrepreneurs and workers, the scientific, arts and cultural elites, politicians, social institutions and the Diaspora communities.

Similarly to what happened nearly forty years ago, we all have the duty to show that we are a credible country and that we have potentialities that are very often ignored.

Much has been stated and written abroad about our Country that does not minimally correspond to reality.

At times there is the deliberate intention to supply a negative picture of our country, to evince only part of the reality. And worse than that, this negative perception is transmitted internally, and is thus a factor for demobilizing the people and inhibiting the expectations of the economic operators. The 25th April of nowadays also consists in showing the world the Country’s assured qualities and the respect we deserve from other nations.

This is. I repeat, a task which all citizens are called upon to accomplish. In addition to the actions of the political officials, what is necessary to consolidate our external projection is the presentation of material examples, capable to win against prejudice, against ready made ideas and the lack of exempt information that exists today concerning Portugal.

We are duty bound, in our contacts with foreign countries, to transmit more than the image of a country characterized by the richness of its History, by the amenity of its climate and by the hospitality of its people. If all this is indisputably true, the Portugal of the 21st century is more, much more, than what we planned decades ago with the objective of attracting tourists and visitors.

Whilst President of the Republic, I have tried several times to give my contribution in order that Portugal is viewed as a State with credibility and dignity, and as a country with numerous positive features and immense possibilities. The challenge that I launch today upon our citizens is that they join their voices to mine, to that of other politicians and that of our diplomats in the defence of Portugal’s external image.

This is not giving rise to a past nationalism, built from myth and imagination, nor returning to a typical speech of the regime deposed on 25th April. We do not have to recourse to fiction, or to create an illusory image of Portuguese reality.

In the field of Science, for instance, in the last two decades the annual number of graduates increased fourfold and the number of new postgraduates witnessed one of the largest growths in Europe. Approximately half the postgraduates occur in areas with great potential, in the exact sciences, in engineering and technology.

It cannot be asserted that this occurred because a greater ease in learning rules in our universities. Portugal recorded in the last decade the second highest growth rate in scientific production in all the countries in the European Union, which proves the international recognition of our researchers.

Portugal has nowadays scientific and technological centres of international renown, in areas of great potential growth, such as nanotechnology, mobile telecommunications and medical sciences. In several fields we are not placing researchers abroad; we are, in effect, more than ever attracting talents from other countries.

Investment in Research and Development, as a proportion of GDP, doubled in the last decade, reaching 1.7 per cent, a value very near the average of the European Union.

The pre-paid card for mobile phones and the automatic toll system, the Green Route, internationally disseminated innovations, originated in Portuguese companies.

In the field of Culture, it is necessary that the world becomes aware that the Portuguese language is spoken by more than 250 million citizens of other countries, located in four continents, and in an Autonomous Region of the Chinese People’s Republic. Portuguese is the third European language in terms of speakers and one of the idioms with greater expansion in the whole world. The Portuguese language is not a heritage from the past, which tends to recede when compared to other idioms. On the contrary: the Portuguese language is a community of the future. It is enough to refer that, in the Twitter network, Portuguese is the third most used language.

We have memorial signs spread over the whole world. Twenty five assets of Portuguese origin are classified by UNESCO as World Heritage. And, what is a greater motive of pride, it is not in just one country or in just one continent. There are Portuguese relics recognized by UNESCO in countries such as Brazil, Uruguay, India, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, or in Macau, in China.

Fado, our traditional song, was recently designated as a World Intangible Asset. This is the effective recognition of the value of our contribution towards people’s cultural progress.

The Portuguese are internationally rewarded in many fields. Two of our architects have been awarded the Pritzker Prize, considered as the Nobel of Architecture. In plastic art, in fashion, in creative industries, the talent of the Portuguese is widely admired. Artist Joana Vasconcelos will be showing her work in the Palace and Gardens of Versailles, a rare distinction that is only attributed to those who have already gained international artistic and creative status. Parallel to this, several of the Portuguese plastic arts commissioners occupy high offices in some of the best museums in the world, from New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Paris’s Jeu de Paume and, shortly, Madrid’s Reyna Sofia Museum.

In cinema there are Portuguese at the front line: just to mention recent instances, João Salaviza and Miguel Gomes were distinguished in Berlin’s Cinema Festival.

This is not the Portugal of the imagined past, nor the Portugal of a desired future. These instances of science and culture belong in present day Portugal. But more: these are expressive examples but not isolated cases. All this was possible due to freedom created on an April dawn. And, simultaneously, all this is authentically Portuguese.

On another level, it is important that the world becomes aware that we were able to create an exemplary relationship with eight Portuguese speaking countries, currently comprising a specific organization, the CPLP (Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries).

We have been known, for many centuries, as builders of bridges between countries and cultures, as artisans of consensus. This characteristic led us, once more, to be elected to the United Nations Security Council, this time for the 2011-2012 two year period, gaining the position in contest with other larger sized countries.

Several Portuguese currently occupy relevant international offices, such as the case of the President of the European Union, The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the UNO High Representative for the Alliance of Civilizations and Special Envoy for the Fight Against Tuberculosis.

We have presided three times over the European Union and all the Portuguese presidencies were recognized for their dynamism and efficiency, and considered as some of the most productive in the History of the construction process of a united Europe. Not fortuitously, the name of the treaty that currently rules the European Union is named «Lisbon Treaty».

Portugal’s prestige is also emphasized by the competence and professionalism demonstrated by our Armed and Security Forces in peace and humanitarian missions in countries such as Afghanistan, Kosovo, East Timor, Lebanon, or the Somalia seas.

Madam Speaker.
Members of Parliament,

With this appeal to the Portuguese for their contribution in projecting abroad the positive features of our reality, I do not wish that the grievous issues existing in our society should be forgotten.

I have underlined, more than once, the need to speak the truth to the Portuguese. Now, however, the truth of difficult times is recognized by all. I am fully conscious of the Country’s situation, of the material issues faced by the Portuguese: unemployment and instability of youth employment, the new poor, the closing down of companies, the dramas that descend upon whole families, the loneliness and privations that affect thousands of aged people.

I am also aware that there are structural problems in our society and in our economy that have to be faced with regard to the future. I recently promoted a deep debate on the effects of the fall in the birth rate. In parallel, I have often underlined the importance of economic growth based upon small and medium sized companies, in close connection with the civil society and the local authorities, and that of a strategy for the revaluation of the interior that combats depopulation and asymmetries in development.

We have to make a collective effort to face issues and discover potentialities. Even in the field of the productive fabric, there are signs demonstrating the capabilities of the Portuguese that must be underlined externally. Currently, many companies operating in the traditional sectors – textiles, footwear, furniture, wine – have reached, due to notable innovative work, a new projection in international markets.

Equally, the potentialities of the economy of the sea are unquestionable. With an inordinately extensive Exclusive Economic Zone, with a 2,900 km coastline, with an immense and unexplored continental platform, the Country has unique conditions for the sustainable development of marine resources and to capture external investments for this project, and which I have always considered as one of the most important national objectives.

In the past, we were able to equip ourselves with the necessary quality infrastructure, which now places us positively in comparison to other States in the European Union. Portugal doubtlessly offers competitive conditions to attract foreign investment, as proven by the success attained by large international companies.

Portugal’s position is equally outstanding in the environmentally sustained energy field. We are the third country in the Union with a greater participation of renewable energies in power consumption.

We want foreigners to be aware that, above all, our best asset is the people. The Portuguese have shown a notable capability to adapt to the current difficulties. In times like this the spirit of solidarity of the Portuguese acquires a dimension that is moving and makes us proud. Networks of solidarity have been established, voluntary activities have grown, especially amongst the young, and the support for those that the crisis has touched more heavily is a reality.

We have been complying rigorously and determinedly with the programme of financial assistance undertaken with the European Commission and with the International Monetary Fund. Several impartial institutions and observers have reached the conclusion, without a measure of doubt, that Portugal knows how to honour its commitments. The assessments of the tripartite mission unequivocally recognize as positive the work in progress in the plan for budgetary consolidation, for the stability of the financial system and for the reforms required to strengthen potential growth and competitiveness.

The «Commitment for Growth, Competitiveness and Employment», established in January of this year, between the Government and the social partners, is the clearest possible sign of a shared sense of responsibility, and of a genuine will that the programme of financial assistance is carried out within a context of peace and social cohesion.

In times such as this it is essential to ensure the Country’s cohesion. It is in times like this that we have to keep united. This demands permanent dialogue and concert between the Government, the opposition parties and the social partners. This has, anyway, been one of our main assets.

In a democracy such as ours, there is always room for pluralism and diversity of opinion. And, as I have had the opportunity to assert once, it is not by fighting each other that we will combat the crisis.

It is this Portugal, the country that celebrates April’s revolution, which we have to show externally. Nearly forty years ago we gave an example to the world: we conquered democracy without violence or bloodletting. The carnations announced a free country and, days later, we celebrated the revolution on a 1st of May where all were joined together, on a festive day without fighting or sectarianism. This is the greater lesson we have to follow today, in the year of 2012, when Portugal is going through one of the most complex periods of its recent History.

With the spirit of 25th April we will jointly be victorious.

Thank you very much.