President – “Portugal facing brutal economic and financial crisis”

Portugal’s President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa warned on Wednesday that the Portuguese should not close their eyes and pretend that the country isn’t facing a “brutal economic and financial crisis”.

On Dia de Camões (Poet Camões Day) the President spoke of the importance of the Portuguese realising what the country was going through because of the pandemic.

He warned of the brutal financial crisis that the country was facing, emphasising that one couldn’t expect that the “solutions of yesterday would be the ones for tomorrow.”

“Portugal cannot pretend that there isn’t a dreadful economic and financial crisis and on this day of commemorations of 10 June all of us have to wake up to this reality,” he continued.

In a speech that lasted little more than 10 minutes, the President said, “These are unforgiving and difficult times. Have we really understood what has happened? Or having merely agreed with the challenges of the time, do we just prefer to go back to the way things were?” he asked.

“The pandemic has been almost universal, has created fears and insecurities, has stopped economies, redrawn borders and halted trade. We have only got to where we have got to, three months on, because the Portuguese people understood and stuck to the quarantine,” he said, mentioning that the “politicians had made a two-month truce and united over what was essential.”

And continued, “We actually realise that we have in the coming months and years a golden opportunity to change what needs to be changed and with courage and determination” he concluded.