The President of the Republic defended today that it is time for Portugal to wake up to the new reality resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic and make the necessary changes, with courage, without returning to the solutions of the past.
“Portugal cannot pretend that it did not exist and there is a pandemic, just as it cannot pretend that it did not exist and there is a brutal economic and financial crisis. And this June 10, 2020 is the exact moment to wake up to this reality”, said Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, at the ceremony commemorating the Day of Portugal, by Camões and the Portuguese Communities, in Lisbon.
The head of state, who was speaking in the cloisters of the Jerónimos Monastery, added: “We cannot understand that nothing or almost nothing happened, as we cannot admit that something serious or very serious has occurred and hope that yesterday's solutions are the solutions of tomorrow, as we cannot agree with the inevitability of change and do nothing for it”.
The President of the Republic pointed out the coming months and years as “a unique opportunity to change what needs to be changed with courage and determination” and rejected the option of “mending, retouching, returning to the usual, to what has already been seen, as if the Portuguese if they forgot what was for them, it is and will be asked for sacrifice and if they were satisfied by revisiting a past that the pandemic has submerged”.
In his ten-minute speech, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa also criticized the idea that “it is time to make personal or group calculations, to prefer accessories to what we have considered essential for months, to pretend that the essential is already acquired, it is gone, it is tired, it is a mere alibi to erase freedom and control democracy”.
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