The 50th anniversary of the PS, like the celebration of Guinea-Bissau’s 50th anniversary, is part of a whole journey, because historical moments do not happen in isolation, but are a series of events.”said Socialist Secretary General António Costa in the German city of Bad Münstereifel, where the PS was founded in April 1973.
With the announced departure of the party leadership, António Costa is now visiting Germany in one of his last actions as Secretary General of the PS. On the Portuguese side, the delegation also includes the deputy secretary general of the PS, João Torres, the president of the party’s parliamentary group, Eurico Brilhante Dias and Isabel Soares, president of the Mário Soares-Maria Barroso Foundation. On the German side there is Lars Klingbeil, chairman of the SPD, and Martin Schultz, former president of the European Parliament and current chairman of the Friederich Ebert Foundation, the same one that financed the party at its founding. A meeting that can be seen as a rapprochement between European socialists for Costa’s eventual candidacy for a European position. However, the still Prime Minister ruled out this hypothesis. “Politics is not a career, politics is a civic activity that is practiced and used in the most diverse ways”Costa replied when asked whether he was considering taking a European position. “Because I feel completely clear of conscience, without anything weighing on my conscience, I understand that the role I have fulfilled as Prime Minister is not compatible with the existence of a judgment based on distrust. Until this matter is clarified, I believe I should not make any public statements. positions, because it is necessary to preserve the integrity of the institutions’he justified.
The origins of PS
On the eve of the installation of a plaque commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Portuguese Socialist Party, Costa did not fail to praise “all those who have fought since May 28, 1926 to defeat the dictatorship, to regaining, in somehow contributing in his own way to April 25″.
The PS emerged as a party still in hiding on April 19, 1973 in Bad Münstereifel, in the former German Federal Republic (FRG), “for security reasons”, as written in its founding minutes. A beginning without unanimity.
Of the 27 people present, 20 voted in favor of the establishment of the PS and seven against. What was at stake was not the founding of the party, but the timing of this happening. Among the votes against is that of Maria Barroso, wife of Mário Soares, the first Socialist general secretary. This decision to vote unfavorably was due to “love”, said DN António Campos, one of those who would sign the creation of the party in Portugal, recalling that Maria Barroso not only feared repercussions from the regime when she heard that the PS had come out of hiding, but also that Mário Soares, exiled in Paris at the time, could not return to Portugal.
German support for the creation of the PS stems from the fact that the German constitution provided that national parties could financially support party forces from other countries, then the RFA, with the aim of helping to create and develop democracy through parties from other countries. recalls António Campos, who missed the historic moment. The socialist, who had already delivered the ticket that would take him to Bad Münstereifel in a clandestine action, would be stranded in Portugal at the time as a result of an accident that left his son in a coma.
Speech by Mario Soares
Among the twenty votes in favor of the creation of the PS was that of Alberto Arons de Carvalho, one of the historic socialists who was then 23 years old. “When I listened to Mário Soares’ speech in Germany, I realized that it would be a mistake not to go further, because he gave a determined and very optimistic speech about the importance of creating a Socialist Party,” revealed the socialist background to DN. “So I know my position and what I have to do,” he concluded, adding that “it was a decisive step.” “Today I would do exactly the same. Without a doubt, I believe that some of those who voted against later realized that the perception we had at the Lisbon meeting was initially a pessimistic and wrong perception.”says Arons de Carvalho.
Source: DN
