“Our physical presence is a sign of the importance the Azores have for Portugal and Europe,” José Manuel Fernandes told DN. The MEP and head of the PSD delegation to the European Parliament thus sums up the first PSD interparliamentary meeting in the Azores, which starts today in Ponta Delgada and which arises in the context of the #MissãoAçores in the European Parliament.
The initiative, which will be attended by the party leader, who will close the meeting tomorrow, aims to bring together the Social Democratic MEPs for debate and exchange of ideas with the members of the regional PSD government of the Azores, the deputies of the Azores to the Assembly of the Republic and the deputies of the Legislative Assembly of the Autonomous Region of the Azores.
José Manuel Fernandes admits that the fact that the PSD is in power in the Autonomous Community (in coalition with the CDS and PPM) “facilitates” the implementation of this initiative and is “a form of “recognition of the positive work of the regional government”.
The meeting also aims to “gain ideas for maximum use of European funds and programs for the Azores and for the legislation produced in Brussels to take into account the specificities of this outermost region. In particular, says the MEP , the package being prepared on climate change, taking into account transport and the specificities of the territorial discontinuity of the islands.
“The war in Ukraine itself gave the Azores a new geostrategic focal point,” emphasizes José Manuel Fernandes. A topic that will be elaborated tomorrow at a lunch conference by the MEP, deputy leader of the party and the PPE, Paulo Rangel.
This first meeting will bring together some of the key PSD figures during conference lunches and dinners in Ponta Delgada. As is the case with the new Social Democratic Parliamentary Leader, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, as well as members of the Regional Government of the Azores Sofia Ribeiro, Pedro Faria e Castro, Berta Cabral, António Ventura and Clélio Meneses, Members of the European Parliament Lídia Pereira , José Manuel Fernandes, Maria da Graça Carvalho, Álvaro Amaro and Cláudia Monteiro de Aguiar, the deputies of the Assembly of the Republic Ricardo Baptista Leite and Francisco Pimentel, the deputies of the Regional Assembly of the Azores Délia Melo, João Bruto da Costa and António Vasco Viveiros, and Jaime Filipe Ramos, of the Regional Assembly of Madeira, as well as other civil society figures such as university professors Pedro Dreitas and Paulo Madruga, to debate topics ranging from health to science, including mobility and transport.
“This meeting and the Azores mission, which will be carried out by the six PSD MEPs of the European Parliament, aim to contribute to the development of the area. MEP José Manuel Fernandes.
The President of the Regional Government of the Azores will be present at the opening and closing of the meeting, in which Luís Montenegro will make a substantive intervention.
In July, Montenegro attended the PSD/Azores Congress, where José Manuel Bolieiro was reconfirmed as the party’s regional leader and deemed it “very relevant” to have MEPs from the two archipelagos. “I want to leave a word of calm to the leaders and militants of the PSD/Azores, because in fact I understand that it is very important for our representation of the European Parliament to have representatives from the autonomous regions,” he said at the meeting. time.
At the same time, Bolieiro stressed that the PSD’s national leadership has “an obligation” to ensure that any future candidacy of the Azores Social Democrats for the European Parliament “will be placed in an unequivocal place”.
The Azores are now hosting the interparliamentary meeting, which shows that the party has every interest in keeping the autonomous regions as power anchors that it does not have on the mainland.
And it takes all the more to nurture the party in the Azores as the PSD managed to form a coalition government out of the 2020 regional elections without winning them. It was the PS that came first, but without a majority in the regional parliament. After 24 years of socialists in power, a regional coalition executive PSD/CDS-PP/PPM was formed, which negotiated a parliamentary advocacy agreement with IL, Chega and an independent deputy.
In an interview with DN in July this year, José Manuel Bolieiro assured that these “surgical” agreements, including those with Chega, do not jeopardize the principles and values of the PSD.
The regional leader also stressed that the conflict in Eastern Europe has strengthened the strategic positioning of the Azores. “Those who thought that, as a result of technology and a global shift to the Pacific – led by the United States leadership -, the Azores, and the Lajes base in particular, would lose interest, were wrong. “Nor is peace an acquired good,” he said.
Source: DN
