Intervenções no blogue 'The Lisboners' (I)

People who predict that something will end are inevitably right: nothing lasts forever. I do believe, though, that the choices we make influence our future, which means that it is up to us to make the right choices, so that the EU takes this opportunity to improve, to become stronger.

Of course, it’s easier to predict that something will crumble than it is to actually build something. The task of those that believe in the European ideal is therefore harder than the task of those that prefer to simply attack the EU and wish for its downfall – we actually have to do something constructive!

Nevertheless, I think sustainable prosperity and peace are two goals worth fighting for. Our task may be harder, but the stakes are too high to abandon this fight.

[Em resposta a este artigo.] 

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Various Portuguese Governments have promised to undertake several structural reforms to promote a more dynamic economy over the last decade. We’ve some positive developments, but a lot was simply left undone.

Our justice system remains slow and expensive, our tax code remains byzantine, our big spending commitments in key infrastructural projects remained (until very recently) extremely unrealistic, and Portugal’s been stockpiling debt in various public bodies, in an attempt to remove it from the national budget. Our labour market doesn’t work properly, and neither does our housing market.

Short-term consolidation measures are not the key issue of the Memoranda: the long-term structural reforms are what really counts. I think our Government owes it to its citizens to take this opportunity to, once and for all, implement a new model for economic development. It won’t be easy, and even those parties that signed on to the Memoranda are trying to find ways to duck their responsibilities, but it’s one of those opportunities that we need to grab on to.

But of course, you are right when you say that we need to look at the bigger picture, and that is the European Union. We need more political (and in certain areas, like services, economic) integration, we need European taxes, we need to bring the EU closer to European citizens, we need European political parties, we need a European public sphere. We need to be European citizens first, and Member State citizens second.

The European Union started out as an economic union of States. We need it to evolve into a federation. And we cannot allow the dream of a united Europe to be shattered: we cannot allow myopic politicians to roll back key advances in European integration for short-term electoral gain.

And it’s not just elected representatives that need to act on this. European citizens must unite to preserve the European ideal. Civil society has to act on this as well.

[Em resposta a este artigo.]