Debate on the XIV Government Program in the Legislative Assembly
The President of the Regional Government of the Azores, José Manuel Bolieiro, said that the Government Program, being debated in the Regional Legislative Assembly, “is a requirement for progress, to which the Azorean people are entitled” and made it clear that “if everyone falls asleep in their own trench, then they won’t be able to build the success that democracies and development demand.”
José Manuel Bolieiro stressed that now is the time to “deal with the confluence of policies and objectives that the different electoral programs presented to the Azoreans” in the recent elections.
He said this is the “opportunity to put aside the divergent accessory and realize the convergent essential. And this essential is the ability to overcome the challenges facing Azorean society, providing it with the necessary means to succeed, to achieve better educational, social, cultural and economic levels.”
According to the President of the Government, “The opposite is to provide the worst public service of an entire generation. The problem is not with democracy but with the specific political players who use democratic devices to promote an insurmountable social division. A divided society with no solution is condemned to anarchy and poverty.”
José Manuel Bolieiro listed five premises on which the Government Program is based: “people and families; reformist and consistent governance; governance based on constant and enriching dialogue, capable of building the consensus necessary for the efficient implementation of the best public policies; governance that promotes qualification as a social elevator; and governance that strengthens the business fabric, which must be focused on generating wealth,” the “most important way of creating jobs and consolidating social stability.”
This is a government program that “projects the future and new ambitions,” he said.
The President of the Government also recalled that “the national and international political and economic contexts” require “understanding, a sense of responsibility, firmness of objectives, as well as a continuous openness to dialogue, which is consequent and whose action is persistent and consistent.”
José Manuel Bolieiro stressed that he had verified, in the “in-depth analysis of the proposals of each” party represented in the Legislative Assembly, that there are “unequivocal convergences” with the vision of the XIV Regional Government.
He stressed that among these measures are, for example, “the defense of democracy and all forms of individual and collective freedoms, as well as the promotion of greater participation by civil society in legislative and referendum initiatives.”
“Also the fight against corruption, with more powers given to the Office for the Prevention of Corruption and Transparency, making it transversal to all government departments,” and the “design of programs for the management of unused public property, to plan its profitability” were aspects mentioned by the governor.
“The legitimacy of political power is strengthened by its ability to resolve conflict, so that it doesn’t become so polarized that it self-destructs,” said José Manuel Bolieiro.

A “clarifying and credible” program, says The Vice-President of the Government.

The Vice-President of the Regional Government of the Azores, Artur Lima, stressed that the Government Program is “clarifying and credible,” responding to the Azoreans’ recent vote for “responsibility, stability and continuity of the policies implemented over the last three years.”
He considered that “rejecting” this Program “is harmful to people. Because it conditions their lives. It harms their companies and institutions. It hinders their investments. It jeopardizes their projects. Because it delays the present and postpones the future. Aware of all this, it is now up to each party in this house to speak out and assume their political responsibilities towards the Azoreans,” stressed Artur Lima.
Artur Lima stressed that democracy is made up of “dialogue and consensus,” and this is the coalition government’s “basis of understanding” for the debate that will take place over the next few days.
“The electoral results that have been achieved oblige us to do so, which is why we are calling on everyone to take responsibility and find compromise solutions so that the Azores are not put off once again,” he continued. During his term in office, Artur Lima will be responsible for external relations, economic cooperation, and Euro-Atlantic affairs. He will also be accountable, for example, for “conducting a science and innovation policy that generates added value and boosts science and technology parks,” as well as “guiding the digital transformation process” in the region.

300 million from the RRP to be implemented per year until 2025

During the presentation of the government’s program, the Secretary for Finance, Planning and Public Administration, Duarte Freitas, emphasized the investments that the region must make by 2026, otherwise it will lose EU funds.
He said that the previous government “inherited a design for its own management of the PRR – Recovery and Resilience Plan, of 580 million euros. With the reprogramming in 2023, we “added” 145 million for regional management, bringing the total amount to 725 million, which must be implemented by the end of 2025.
Even though the execution of the PRR “is quite different from the traditional structural funds,” he said, “We estimate that in 2024 and 2025, the crest years of this Program, we will execute around 300 million each year.”
In this regard, he announced that in 2023, more than 200 million euros of Community funds entered the region’s treasury, three times the average of the previous programming period, which was 67 million, “thus fulfilling, in 2023, what was established in the Strategic Partnership Agreement”.
Duarte Freitas spoke of the Government of the Republic’s “non-compliance” with investments in the port of Lajes das Flores due to Hurricane Lorenzo. He stressed that the new Portuguese government – which is about to take office – was “demanding” that 53 million euros “in arrears” be paid “swiftly” concerning national solidarity for Hurricane Lorenzo.
He also said that the technical work agreed with Professor Paz Ferreira to revise the Autonomous Regions’ Finance Law will be resumed.
Naturally, the process of privatizing Azores Airlines and the hotels in the Ilhas de Valor will be resumed as soon as the XIV Government Programme is approved. However, other studies are still to be carried out relating to the extra costs of education and health, which will provide the region with political and technical support. He made it clear that the current government will fulfill all the commitments made by the previous government and announced that it will launch the new Public Employment Exchange in the coming months, which “will allow simpler and faster online applications for public jobs in the region.”
He announced that the pilot project for a four-day week in the Regional Public Administration would come into force in 2024, creating a Working Group to implement it after consulting the Public Administration Advisory Council, which was reactivated in the previous legislature. He described the region’s “positive” evolution regarding economic growth in recent years and then pointed out that “the greatest truth is that we are still not satisfied. We want more.”
“We want more justice in the distribution of income and better conditions for workers,” and “we want economic development, yes, but with the social development we strive for.”
He stressed that the government will “persist with support for hiring that encourages wage increases” and with a support system for private investment that “innovatively rewards those who implement company policies that benefit workers.” “We cannot rest until we correct the social injustices that persist and the economic inequalities that remain,” said Duarte Freitas.

PSD/A highlights Bolieiro’s openness to dialogue in the debate on the Government Program in Parliament

The President of the PSD/Azores Parliamentary Group, João Bruto da Costa, yesterday highlighted the “openness to dialogue” of the President of the Coalition Government, José Manuel Bolieiro, who showed himself to be “a true leader, presenting a government program made with determination and humility,” he said.
The Social Democrat spoke at the opening of the Government Program discussion in the Legislative Assembly, a document “that shows the willingness to include proposals from all the other parties, without taboos or states of mind, essentially thinking of the Azoreans.”
João Bruto da Costa recalled that “the PS did not win these elections”, even though, “in terms of what differentiates us, we are dealing with two political projects that were voted for by the Azoreans”.
“There are two different paths here, but the Azoreans chose continuity and consistency in policies, but also a reformist path, as presented by the President of the Government,” he said.
“And what a remarkable difference, in relation to what truly brings us here, in this presentation, of a Program that reflects the proposal and the electoral contract signed and chosen by the majority of Azoreans, which does not forget or ignore the need to aggregate and have more common denominators with these Azoreans,” said Bruto da Costa.
“It’s a Government Program that really gives importance to what can make the Azores move forward and progress. And that makes a notable difference between the two electoral programs that were presented to the Azoreans, one of them led by the PS, which did not win the regional elections,” he stressed.
The social-democratic parliamentary leader also referred to the BE, “which thinks that there were no elections, because it came here to maintain the criticisms, which the Azoreans said it wasn’t right about, so it lost a Parliamentary Group, even though it gained the essential support of the PS in the way of doing politics and opposition.”
“But the truth is that the Azoreans have chosen an alternative course for a non-Socialist future in governance, which will lead us to a better future.”
“We had a true leader here, presenting a government program made with determination and humility, with ambition and dialogue. And now we can’t stand still, so let us work,” concluded João Bruto da Costa.

Berto Messias defends task force to implement EU funds

The PS/Azores MP Berto Messias said yesterday during the debate on the Government Program that the Azores have “throughout our democratic autonomy, always been seen as a good example in the application of structural and community funds” and that “it is essential that this path is not interrupted.”
He quoted the President of the Government when he said that “this is a government of continuity,” and added: “In truth, to speak of continuity in the inability to effectively implement the funds available in recent times is a bad sign for the future of our region”.
“What we have unfortunately witnessed in the Azores over the last three and a half years has been, let’s be clear, a profound inability to ensure effective and full implementation of the funds that are available, whether in the context of the structural funds, the Azores 2030 Operational Program or the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR),” said the PS MP.
“We are not here, the Socialist Party is not here, nor does it want to be here, in a destructive posture in which it criticizes everything and everyone. The PS is here to highlight clear political facts: in the last three and a half years, the government has not contributed in an effective and assertive way to increasing the credibility of our region’s self-government bodies, as active agents of good execution of the available funds,” stressed Berto Messias.
In this context, he left “an important contribution: that a task force be urgently created in this Regional Government so that they can quickly and effectively execute the funds that are available so that the Region doesn’t want to, or have to, lose the credibility it has built up over the years of Democratic Autonomy as an exemplary territorial unit in the execution of EU funds and have to return funds.”
In Berto Messias’s opinion, the return of EU funds “would be negative not for the Government of the Azores, not for those sitting here, but for the present and future of the Region, and we don’t want that to happen.”
On the other hand, the PS/Azores MP considered that “it is absolutely essential that the Region strengthens its capacity to represent itself at the European level.”
“We also have sitting in this Parliament,” he said, referring to Vasco Cordeiro as President of the Committee of the Regions, “a good example of this credibility, built up throughout the Autonomy.”
Based on Article 349 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Berto Messias said that “we all, the Regional Government first and foremost, this Parliament, have to increase the efficiency and intensity of work and development in the decisions of the European Union and what this represents as a return for our Region, not only from an institutional point of view, but for the daily lives of all of us and each of our fellow citizens.”
The Assemblymember left another message: “(…) Despite many supposedly knowledgeable minds in Lisbon who think that the epicenter of the bilateral relationship between Portugal and the United States is in mainland Portugal, it’s not true; it’s here. The epicenter of the historic bilateral relationship between Portugal and the United States is in the Azores. And so more is needed. The Americans need to understand this once and for all. The institutions that gravitate around this reality, such as FLAD, the Luso-American Foundation for Development, need to understand and have an increasingly clear perception of this point of view,” he said.
“The PS is, as it has always been, on the right side of history, on the side of the Azoreans. This isn’t the end of an era, it’s the beginning of a new era for the Socialist Party leading the opposition,” he concluded.

José Pacheco from the ultra-right wing populist party CHEGA says he is open to dialogue.

The leader of Chega Açores, José Pacheco, considers this a time of “hope and faith,” which implies hope for a “better future, a new turning point, forgetting the past and moving on to the future,” according to the results that the Azoreans transferred to the polls on February 4.
“If everything were easy, anyone would do it. It’s being difficult that makes the difference,” said José Pacheco. He said he was waiting to see if the current coalition government “will have the certainties, convictions, and actions to turn hope into action and take the Azores forward.”
After seeing some of Chega’s proposals listed in the Government Program, José Pacheco believes that this “is not enough. Chega has never been so courted. But it was like when we were at school. We wanted to date a girl, but we forgot to tell the girl what we wanted,” he explained.
“Chega is in a position of dialog, of collaboration, of being able to do something different. It was important that this dialog had already been opened,” said the parliamentary leader, while guaranteeing that until Friday, “we are available, we are never going to close this door, and we are never going to be part of the problem. Still, we are going to be part of the solution.” José Pacheco said, “If the government wants to engage in dialogue and overcome the uncertainties, it will have to talk to Chega by Friday,” he concluded.
For his part, the Liberal Initiative (IL) member of the Azorean Parliament, Nuno Barata, lamented yesterday that “socialism survives in the minds of those who govern this region,” pointing out that the Government Programme of the PSD/CDS/PPM coalition presents measures “that move towards the ‘Venezuelization’ of the Azorean economy, rather than its liberalization”. In his first intervention in the debate on the Regional Government Programme, Nuno Barata acknowledged that “there are measures included” with which the IL “even sympathizes.” However, he criticized that the government had “tried to condition the opposition parties” by including, “without any prior dialogue,” measures from other parties in the Coalition Government Programme.
Meanwhile, Pedro Neves, from PAN, adopted a moderate discourse, criticizing some of the policies in the Government Program but hinting that his position would ultimately be to abstain.
António Lima, from the Left Bloc, was the assemblymember with the harshest criticisms of the government, absolutely disagreeing with the privatization of Azores Airlines and speaking out against an economic development that “favors a few” and, in his opinion, leaves out the majority of the Azorean population.

From news reports published by Correio dos Açores – Natalino Vivieiros, director

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Cultures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Media Alliance)  at California State University, Fresno–PBBI thanks the sponsorship of the Luso-American Development Foundation from Lisbon, Portugal (FLAD)