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

Your Royal Highness Dona Pilar de Borbón
Madam Secretary of State for Culture
Very Reverend Bishop Antonino Dias
Mister Mayor of Portalegre
Civil and Military Authorities
Dear friends

A very good evening to you all.
We have been living a host of celebrations, today, which we are ending in this beautiful zone of the magnificent city of Portalegre that wanted to welcome us, as is their wont, with its heart in its hands.

I am very appreciative of this so very Portuguese saying, which is a gesture of what we are and of what we like to be. To welcome someone with our heart in our hands means that we have it available to give to whoever comes in friendship. And this is the case.

Thank you Mister Mayor Mata Cáceres, for having made us welcome and feel at home in your city.

Several celebrations, on a special day.

Celebration of Europe, through the significant officiating (let us call it this way) on Portuguese soil of the “Europa Nostra” Prize, with which H-R.H. Infanta Dona Pilar, wished to honour us by the pleasure of her presence here.

Thank you, Dona Pilar!

This prize, which was awarded in the research category to a work by the Curator of the Museum of the Presidency, Dr. Diogo Gaspar, is another step, an important step, in the construction of Europe.

“Europa Nostra” wants to make Europe our common home, overcoming political motivations, and going further and deeper in the valuation of our heritage.

Europe’s heritage is its trade mark, its soul, and this project has already been joined by forty countries.

We are celebrating today, with the ceremonies of this encounter, the soul of our Europe, Europa Nostra.

And equally the celebration of a corner of Europe which is very dear to all those present here.

In this corner of Western Europe – the Iberian Peninsula – Portugal and Spain have shared a destiny which is not just the territory itself.

The presence of H.R.H Infanta Dona Pilar de Borbón and the sharing of prizes dedicated to research on heritage are another bond bringing us together. .

We celebrate today, in this scenario, also recently restored, a history of friendship. With highs and lows, as always happens between countries and between people, but friendship all the same.

The visible faces of this friendship here today are those of Infanta Dona Pilar and mine, as the wife of the President of the Republic of Portugal.

We all know the bonds that link Dona Pilar to our country, our culture, our language, our soul.

On my part, I feel proud that it was my husband, then as Prime Minister of Portugal, who endeavoured and achieved the definitive approach between Portugal and Spain, which the paths of history had at times deflected, possibly due to the fact that we have shared the same territory for so many centuries.

The Luso-Spanish Summits, initiated in 1986 by the President of the Spanish Government, at that time Felipe González, and by the Prime Minister of Portugal, at that time Aníbal Cavaco Silva, put a definitive end to the tiffs between brothers who have to live in the same space.
At that time, these brothers were entering, already arm in arm and not with their backs turned, the common destiny which was the European Community.

With the arrival on the throne of a King and a Royal Family who know Portugal like the palms of their hands, the harmony in the Iberian Peninsula was finally arrived at.

After all, what we are celebrating here today is also the history of a fine friendship between two countries who share amongst them the body of our Peninsula: Spain and Portugal.

Thank you for being here with us, Infanta Dona Pilar de Borbón!

Thank you for being part of the history of this friendship!

Maria Cavaco Silva