Speech delivered by the President of the Government - Communication

Presidência do Governo Regional

Full text of the speech delivered today by the President of the Government, José Manuel Bolieiro, in Horta at the solemn session celebrating the Day of the Autonomous Region of the Azores:

"Today, the day of the Holy Spirit Feast, we are celebrating the Azores.

Back at the headquarters of our Legislative Assembly, we are ending a cycle of decentralisation, decided at the right time, which has already taken the celebration of Azores Day to all the municipalities of the Region and to two important areas of the Azorean Diaspora: Fall River and Toronto.

If the will of the Legislative Assembly coincides with that of the Government of the Azores, we will return, in the next cycle of celebrations, to the itinerancy of the celebrations throughout the territory of our Azorean identity.

Today, in the city of Horta, an example of our cosmopolitanism and coexistence with the sea, one of our greatest assets, we are also marking the transition of cycles. For the new cycle, we must continue to recognise the merit of the achievement, but I hope that it also becomes a strong challenge to the political and civic participation of young people, as it is, above all, through their action that Autonomy will prosper.

I would like to thank all the people of Faial, including the Horta City Council, for welcoming us to these celebrations and for their contribution to their organisation.

Today, we celebrate what we are because of what we have been, as a people who have conquered political autonomy to assert themselves in democracy. But we also celebrate the present, which, as a People, expresses their own identity, affirming their difference as islands, within a State that, as well as being a unitary State, is a State of two Regions with Political Autonomy.

And this is very important for its true understanding.

Furthermore, the future is always in consideration of the present and cannot be ignored, nor can young people, who challenge the present to transform it into the future. After all, the future is intergenerational.

The legacy we have received is a source of inspiration for our collective future. A future that already fills us with confidence.

In the Azores, we are united in diversity.

We work for unity, which strengthens us, and we nurture diversity, which enriches us.

We are a unity of differences, with each island emphasising and highlighting the qualities of all the others.

Our geography has helped to shape our history. We are a people in the centre of the Atlantic, a land of transition, a place of exchange and a people who embraces hospitality.

We positively value differences, be they cultural, religious, political or ideological.

Geography and nature have forged our character.

We take action and react with the same force.

We have never given up. We have recovered. We carry on.

On the morning of May 4 in Ponta Delgada, the community was mobilised to celebrate the Santo Cristo dos Milagres festivities.

Surprisingly, as nature often does, we were faced with a fire in a technical area of the Divino Espírito Santo Hospital, which caused the full disruption in that hospital and, therefore, a profound disturbance in the functioning of the Regional Health Service.

The technical capacity, in terms of human resources and equipment, and the importance of the Divino Espírito Santo Hospital in the regional context, as an essential first-line hospital, confer on it an importance that transcends the island of São Miguel.

Suddenly, the hospital was completely evacuated. We were unable to count on the service, essential to life, provided by this important hospital unit.

It was a moment of anguish, but the fire was successfully extinguished by the competent and diligent action of our firefighters, who were mobilised from Ponta Delgada and all over the island of São Miguel. I pay my tribute to them.

The hospital emergency plan was promptly activated and the fire perimeter controlled. Urgent response measures were immediately taken, including the transfer of hospitalised patients to other health units on São Miguel Island, and the closure of the emergency department at the Divino Espírito Santo Hospital.

Thanks to the professional spirit, the will to succeed, the altruism and enormous sense of responsibility and solidarity of firefighters, the Civil Protection, the entire community of professionals working at the Divino Espírito Santo Hospital and the health care provided by all the health services on all the islands, the Azoreans, and especially the people of São Miguel, felt the comfort of having essential health care, either at the Health Centres of Nordeste, Povoação, Vila Franca do Campo, Lagoa, Ribeira Grande and Ponta Delgada, or at the CUF Hospital, the Clínica do Bom Jesus, the São Miguel Mental Institute, the São João de Deus Institute, the Nossa Senhora da Conceição Mental Institute run by the Hospital Order of São João de Deus, or at the Horta Hospital, the Santo Espírito Hospital in Angra do Heroísmo and the Funchal Hospital.

I commend the management of the hospital crisis by the Board of Directors of the Divino Espírito Santo Hospital.

At this time of pain, anguish and vulnerability, we feel the comfort of the solidarity of many Private Social Solidarity Institutions, various organisations in the regional private and public business sector and many other institutions in Azorean society.

The solidarity shown by the Portuguese Red Cross, the Armed Forces and the Government of the Autonomous Region of Madeira was - is - essential in providing the health care that we continue to provide to the Azoreans.

I immediately received a telephone call from the President of the Republic, who, in fact, made himself available to visit the hospital.

I would like to emphasise the attitude of the National Government to this catastrophe.

At the immediate request of the Prime Minister, the Minister of Health visited the hospital and admitted that the State has to look after and care for all Portuguese people on an equal footing.

The Minister of Health said: "The National Health Service, which includes the Regional Health Service, must now look at this moment, which none of us expected, as a moment to plan for the future."

In other words, as we have always said, the autonomy of the Regional Health Service does not rule out the State's responsibilities for the immediate provision of health care to the Azoreans.

This is what we mean by Autonomy of Responsibility.

The National Government, and in particular the Prime Minister, has agreed to jointly contribute to the costs of the immediate and future operations at the Divino Espírito Santo Hospital.

85% co-funding and the corresponding instalment for this year on the estimated costs to be borne by the end of this year. 

We all have a great challenge ahead of us: resuming all the health care that the people of São Miguel, in particular, but all Azoreans, in general, need and that used to be provided by the Divino Espírito Santo Hospital, and doing it in a manner that the future already requires.

I know we will overcome this challenge!

In 2020, 2021 and 2022 we were facing the resolution of the global crisis caused by covid-19.

We spent material and financial resources, putting a great deal of effort into the human resources available.

In 2022, we faced the seismovolcanic crisis in São Jorge.

And together we faced the difficulties and anguish of the people of São Jorge.

Now, on the Santo Cristo dos Milagres Saturday, we suffered yet another misfortune. We were left without the Divino Espírito Santo Hospital.

Once again, we have been serene and resilient in our actions.

And we are gradually resuming the provision of health care to those who need it.

On top of all this, we are unfortunately living through troubled times, with wars and the subsequent economic and financial crises.

All these setbacks require us to be serene and consistent in our policies, resilient in our actions, understanding and stable in our emotional intelligence, and with political, governmental and social stability.

I urge everyone to have the understanding, judgement and serenity required for the best response to the problems we are facing in general and, in particular, to the sudden and unexpected closure of the Divino Espírito Santo Hospital.

Recovery will be slow and gradual because it has to be safe.

In a world where we all depend on each other, the Autonomy of Responsibility is, in my view, increasingly the appropriate response to the relations between citizens, public administrations, autonomous regions and central states. Almost nothing, if anything, is possible today without stable, predictable and thoughtful cooperation, in other words, without the consistent co-responsibility of the makers and recipients of actions and decisions.

The Autonomy of Responsibility is about having power in what is specific to the Region, but also about sharing power in other dimensions in which the Azores are also part.

After all, in a time of inspiration dedicated to the Holy Spirit veneration, sharing, solidarity and humanised politics are crucial. In times of difficulty, we all stand together.

The consistency of our political autonomy in the Azores does not relieve the state of its obligations.

On the contrary.

Autonomous coherence determines our ability to make claims on behalf of our people, also to the State, so that it fulfils each of its obligations in the Azores too.

At this same celebration, the one that took place last year, in 2023, I explained our concept of Autonomy of Responsibility with other specific cases.

At the time, the Azorean and National governments were different.

In the Azores, the XIII Regional Government was in office. Meanwhile, in the Republic, the XXIII National Government was in office.

Today, both governments are different.

In the Azores, following the early regional legislative elections, the XIV Regional Government is in office, with the President of the Government still representing the same political force.

In the Republic, also following early parliamentary elections, the XXIV Government is in office, but with a new Prime Minister representing a new and different political force.

But that fact, as far as I am concerned, neither changes the crystal-clear identification of the best interests of the Azores, nor the responsibilities of the State in the Azores and towards the Azoreans.

Our understanding of the Autonomy of Responsibility, as the paradigm of the relations between the State and the Autonomous Region of the Azores, does not waver with these changes.

Last year, I did it because of the Azores! And this year I am doing it for the Azores.

And it was for having done so then that I have the authority to bring it up again today!

I am saying again now, for the Azores, that the obligations of the state towards the Azoreans do not begin and end with the annual transfers of funds from the State Budget to the Regional Budget.

They are only fulfilled if the State guarantees that all citizens are treated equally, giving them the same opportunities, regardless of where they live.

It is fair to recognise the positive feedback received from the Minister of Youth and Modernisation and the Minister of Health during their recent visits to the Azores.

Considering young Azoreans as potential direct beneficiaries of national measures from the National Government was an important commitment from the Minister of Youth and Modernisation.

The willingness to support the recovery and renovation of the Divino Espírito Santo Hospital and the understanding that the Minister of Health has shown about the responsibilities of the National Health Service regarding the entire national territory are very relevant facts.

However, it is important to point out that the State is still failing to fulfil its obligations towards the Azores and the Azoreans, which is extremely detrimental to us.

This time around, it is only fair not to criticise the omission given its short period in office, but to warn the new National Government.

The aid to be granted by the State for the reconstruction of the Flores commercial port, destroyed by Hurricane Lorenzo, has yet to be paid in full. And it should have done so.

The processes concerning the compensation due as a result of public service obligations for passenger and cargo air transport, the mobility allowance and the replacement of fibre-optic submarine cables, both those connecting the islands to each other and those connecting us to the world, must be addressed in a timely manner and at a pace that does not disregard our rights, without exposing us to risks of isolation that would be unbearable.

As an Atlantic University, our University, a lever for our development, must be a point of confluence for science from Europe and America, and a benchmark for research and knowledge in the fields of the green economy and the blue economy.

The State must fulfil its obligations to the University of the Azores within a legal framework of regular, fair and sufficient funding.

We continue to feel the impact of the wars on the economy, which, unfortunately, will not stop. Nor are they expected to stop in the short term.

I would therefore insist on calling on the National Government, within the framework of national aid, to provide equal conditions for internal competition, adopting the necessary measures to allow Azorean agricultural producers to benefit from the same aid granted to producers in Mainland Portugal, so as to offset the effects of the current crisis.

Furthermore, in this area, I call on the National Government, in collaboration with the Regional Government, to study solutions for a reasonable reduction in the Social Security contributions of young farmers who carry out their activity in the Region, encouraging them to enter and remain in the sector, while recognising the particular situation of the Azorean agricultural sector in the national context.

I would remind and urge the National Government to solve, without further unbearable delays, the solution for the Ponta Delgada correctional facility, and the dignity of its inmates and their families.

I would like to see the sharing of solutions between the Political Autonomy, the Portuguese State and the European Union for the problems of each and every party be the motto and a success in terms of achievement, so that I could say, like Baruch de Espinosa, in his "Tractatus Politicus" of 1676: "I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them."

We are living through challenging times. Democracy is facing divisions and challenges.

We have a responsibility as democrats towards our citizens to demonstrate that it is important to participate in the construction of society.

We, therefore, have to uphold justice and equal opportunities.

We cannot allow the widespread disbelief, which is often based on lies but sometimes confirmed by acts that discredit us all, to be justified.

For the Azorean people, celebrating 50 years of democracy also means celebrating the fulfilment of autonomic aspirations.

We still have a long way to go to reach the standard of development and progress of the European Union, which we belong.

Long live the Azores! Long live the Azoreans."