The president of the republic warned on Thursday of “great pressure on democracies” around the world and called on Portugal for “solid and stable political commitments” that make the implementation of government policies predictable.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa spoke during the solemn opening session of the academic year 2022/2023 of the National Defense Institute (IDN), in Lisbon, in an intervention in which he described Portugal as “a vulnerable country” to the external situation, but which also ” objective benefits in times of heightened uncertainty, risk or arbitrariness”.
“The continued foreign investment, tourism, the search for a safe stay are there to confirm it, as they were during the Second World War,” he stressed.
In a warning tone, the head of state stated that “in 2022, among other things, the world will be characterized by deep pressure on democracies, with widespread competition from authoritarian and hybrid models whose charm is reaping not only in countries inside and outside Europe, but also in parties that in Western democratic systems have gained more space than in recent years”.
“Today, more than ever, we need democracy to mobilize citizens for the great debates of today, for the great designs of Portugal, for the dangers plaguing our collective security,” says Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
“This mobilization must be based on solid and stable political commitments, which give the essential consistency to the sustainability of our national interests, regardless of successive strategic contexts, making predictability in the implementation of public policies a comparative virtue,” he added, without to specify which commitments referred.
The president of the republic stressed that there are currently “fewer democracies on a global scale than ten, twenty years ago”.
“Democracy must be cared for in form and content, preserved in its non-negotiable values, reformed in its most crystallized elements, rejuvenated in its protagonists, in adapting to the great transitions the world is really going through and in a capacity to react on concrete problems of flesh-and-blood people who form communities and are so often so different from the vision of specific political and media cycles,” he defended.
Marcelo defends “new dignity” for security and defense in public policy
The President of the Republic and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces on Thursday defended the need to give “a new dignity in the hierarchy of public policy” to security and defense in terms of resources and multilateral cooperation.
According to the head of state, the war unleashed by the Russian Federation in Ukraine has “made it even more inevitable that security and defense will acquire a new dignity in the hierarchy of public policy, both in the allocation of resources and in the cooperative dimension present in alliances.” and multilateral organizations.” “.
“It is easy to talk about the priority that represents the challenge of security and defense in the current context. It is more difficult to achieve it, not in promises, but in deeds, in terms of the priority of the community and political powers in these fundamental areas,” he added.
The “first word” of the President of the Republic in this solemn session was to those in the armed forces, inside and outside Portugal, “at present serving the Fatherland, always hoping that the Fatherland will match their courageous and devoted service”.
In his speech, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa also referred to the ongoing process of reviewing the Strategic Concept of National Defence, considering that it should be “more Anglo-Saxon than Latin, slender, clear in form and content, flexible”.
“Choosing the true priorities and forgoing the list of dreams, challenges, concrete actions that irresistibly tend to populate what must above all be an essential roadmap, and turn it into a statement of everything that happens on Earth and in the heaven can exist,” he said. added.
Source: DN
