The President of the Republic defended, in the traditional New Year message, that, in 2022, Portugal should "consolidate the path to overcoming the pandemic", considering that the months between January and March will be the "crucial time" to close "a chapter of history'.
In the New Year's message, delivered at the Belém Palace, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa considered that Portugal could do “much and much more” in 2022, calling for the “path to overcome the pandemic to be consolidated”.
“We are on the way, but the end of the ends is missing. January to March will be the crucial time for winter to help close a chapter of our history, and convert worries and afflictions into hopes and trusts," he said.
According to the head of state, 2022 must be the year in which the country reinvents "the lives frozen, postponed, slaughtered by the pandemic", namely through the use of European funds, "which are unrepeatable", and which must be applied "with transparency, rigor, competence and efficiency, fighting corruption and illicit favoritism».
In a speech centered around five key ideas – «consolidate, decide, reinvent, reconnect, turn the page» -, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa also called for solidarity to be rediscovered and care for «those most sacrificed by the pandemic, by unemployment, for insolvency by stopping life”, listing “the elderly, the sickest, the disabled, the helpless at school, in search of a profession or a home, in integration into a different society”.
“In particular, looking at children, whose future has been forgotten by the priority given to so-called groups at risk. They and they, all those who live on the sunless sidewalk in the street of our common life, will take much longer to learn to relive after what they suffered», he said.
Retracing the year 2021, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa stated that the first six months "were, here and abroad, harder than in 2020, with a pandemic, economic downturn, social crisis, decompensation of people and wear and tear on institutions."
“We resisted, we contained, we vaccinated, we reopened on-site schools, we started the economy, we exported, we received tourists again, we tried to start again”, he stressed.
Among the international events of importance to Portugal, the President of the Republic highlighted the re-election "by acclamation" of António Guterres as secretary general of the United Nations (UN) and also the Portuguese presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU), which took place in the first half of the year, with Marcelo recalling the approval of the “digital certificate, the [European] funds for the coming years and the climate law”.
Despite this, the President of the Republic stressed that the pandemic "stubbornly persisted at the end of the year"" – Portugal beat, in the last days of 2021, the daily records of covid-19 cases -, but maintained that the rise in contagions obliges the country, “serene but stubbornly, testing, vaccinating, resisting” and “learning to live” with the pandemic.
«With the patience of someone who has lived almost 900 years. He's already lost, he's regained his independence, he's had a thousand crises, he's overcome them as best he can and he knew how. But this time, he has much more to do to make up for lost time», he indicated.
Using the popular expression “new year, new life”, the head of state defended that “2022 really must be 'new year, new life', in a world with less pandemic, more growth, less poverty, more commitment to the challenges of the climate".
«Less selfishness of peoples and States, more attention to the immediate cost of life, energy and basic goods, in a Europe with more convergence, less waiting, more reconstruction, less inequality, more commitment to youth, less loneliness for those who are no longer young , especially in rapidly aging countries», he enumerated.
The President of the Republic thus wished a good year for all the Portuguese, "and in particular for the Armed Forces, the security forces and the civilians" who find themselves in "mandates that honor" the name of Portugal "in the five continents".
«I am present more than ever, I count on you more than ever. Good 2022 for our Portugal, for each and every one of you, who deserve it well», he concluded.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa today delivered his fifth New Year message since he took office as President of the Republic, in March 2016, and in 2021 he did not do so due to the proximity of the date with the presidential elections, which were held in January 24th.
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