President José Manuel Bolieiro’s recent efforts in Lisbon, with the Government of the Republic, were crowned with success, and for that, he and all of us are to be congratulated! It was a matter of making good on long-standing promises of support, in one case very long-standing – I’m referring to the damage caused by Hurricane Lorenzo, which has been going on for almost half a dozen years now, and which caused tearful visits and commitments to be honored in the future, but which were promptly forgotten… But it’s only natural that the regional financial situation was also the subject of talks with Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, giving rise to alternative solutions, the content of which Azorean public opinion will certainly soon be informed of.
The problem was presented with great simplicity by the Regional Secretary for Parliamentary Affairs and the Communities: to implement the RRP, the government has decided to abandon its commitment to zero indebtedness and either obtain 150 million euros from the Government of the Republic, through the capitation of VAT revenues or otherwise or have to look for the same amount on the market. We all hope that the revision of the Regional Finance Law will allow us to find a solution to our current regional woes in time!
It’s worth remembering that we suffer the perverse effects of the Steps-relief LFR, which the PSD/Azores MPs voted against. But we mustn’t forget that the commitments made to the Troika were negotiated by the PS government led by the then Prime Minister José Sócrates. On the other hand, the previous LFR already contained a lot of squeezes from the Central Power, and that’s why the PSD voted against it as a whole. I was the spokesperson for the criticism of the diploma, by the Minister of Finance at the time, who even threatened to resign if it was changed by Parliament.
In other words, the regional financial issue has always been the subject of controversy and intense confrontation between the governments of the Autonomous Regions and the Government of the Republic. In the beginning, issues were resolved on a case-by-case basis, until it was decided to impose the signing of a financial protocol during Prime Minister Cavaco Silva’s consulate, which was, in fact, signed by the President of the Government of Madeira, with the express proviso that he would not comply with it, but was rejected by the Government of the Azores, whose situation in terms of public accounts was very different.
The introduction of the concept of LFR into the text of the Constitution in the 1997 revision, under the leadership of the PS, opened the door to drafting the first version of the Constitution, which involved the best human resources available at the time in both Autonomous Regions. It was a rigorous law, full of safeguards that proved to be very timely, as they made it possible to guarantee the values that had been laboriously negotiated beforehand as an irrefutable starting point for applying the new law. It also included eliminating accumulated public debt, which in the case of the Azores was around 110 million escudos. Later, during the “Limian budgets” phase and to obtain the favorable vote of the PSD/Madeira deputies, the value of 30 million escudos of the debt of the Health Services of each of the Autonomous Regions was also thrown into the “mare magnum” of the national public debt.
In other words, the “counter” was practically reset to zero in our case, and, on top of that, the transfer of funds from the State Budget to the Autonomous Region of the Azores almost doubled. European funds have also come to count for a lot. Yet, the regional debt has continued to grow and has already exceeded three billion euros, generating significant annual charges. What’s more, the Constitutional Court – always the Constitutional Court! – took the view that the existence of an LFR established in the Constitution itself meant that the provisions on the matter contained in the Political-Administrative Statute of both Autonomous Regions would be annulled, which were intended to protect them, with the unique guarantee that the statutory precepts were understood to enjoy, from the centralist appetites of any national ruler. Obviously, this was not considered the case by the regional entities involved in this process, and it was a veritable attack from behind. But anyway, we have made ourselves look good by introducing the concept of LFR into the Constitution without expressly safeguarding the principles of the Statute on financial matters.
We are facing a serious problem that must be addressed as a priority by the Organs of Self-Government of our Autonomous Region and by the Sovereign Bodies of the Republic. Dialogue between all the parties involved, including the political parties in the Majority or in Opposition, at regional and national levels takes on great urgency and calls for positive results.

João Bosco Mota Amaral Was the first President of the Autonomous Region of the Azores From 1976 until 1995.

NOVIDADES will feature occasional opinion pieces from various leading thinkers and writers from the Azores to give the diaspora and those interested in the current Azores a sense of the significant opinions on some of the archipelago’s issues.

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL)