The ATLANTE strategic project is an initiative of the Vice-Presidency of the Regional Government of the Azores.
Regional Government of the Azores aims to facilitate relations between European and African countries participating in MAC funding programs, i.e., those in Macaronesia and adjacent areas. To this end, it advocates diplomatic initiatives to build and strengthen cooperation networks. Whatever that means.
Recently, the work in progress was given new impetus when a contract for the purchase of services was made public between the Vice-Presidency and a local travel agency, as part of the travel agency as part of the project. The agreement of fifty-two thousand two hundred euros plus VAT, amounting to around seventy thousand euros.
This is a substantial investment in an outermost region that wants to be more developed, even if inequality persists and increases, with rampant poverty, class distinctions, and the increasing weight of the extreme right.
To this end, it is hoped that such an investment project will materialize with tangible results for the archipelago’s future.
In fact, the signed contract for the purchase of services organized the trip of eleven people, passing through Lisbon and ending up in São Tomé. They departed from Terceira, Faial, and S. Miguel, totaling a substantial diplomatic entourage, which undertook to participate in an event to exchange knowledge and strengthen institutional links. It seems that it was with the government of São Tomé.
For the more inattentive, to recap, around 70,000 euros were spent on the Vice-Presidency and its guests to participate in this event, which, according to the specifications, lasted six days. We are now waiting for the results.
What we already know is that we live in the region with the highest poverty rate in the country, that coverage and access to education are increasingly unequal, from nursery school to higher education, that many serious cases require direct intervention by the authorities, and that the solutions pondered by the executives led by José Manuel Boliero are still in vain.
Shackling a peripheral and insular government should not be pursued. By the very nature of the Azores, our leaders will always need to spend a lot of time on planes, and from my own experience, I know how tiring that can be. It’s not all a vacation, as some populists might like to proclaim. There’s a big difference between traveling and attending a six-day event in São Tomé. Perhaps there is a detailed report, which has not yet been made public, that tells us what was done during that time, with drivers, five-star hotels, and other such perks.
This article does not announce that there will be no justification. What it does do is call for some decorum in these processes and some care in their execution. International relations are an important issue for any government, regional or national. The creation and strengthening of bridges must be maintained. But it can’t all be worth it. And 70,000 euros would certainly be a sum to invest thoughtfully.
How do we interpret Luís Garcia’s recent institutional visit to the Zero Waste project, a work that serves to save environmental efforts and value care waste? How should we read the President of the Assembly’s praise for his sustainability efforts days after that six-day event in São Tomé? How do we deal with a government that says everything and does the opposite?
We are a people of navigators and travelers. We only ask that our helmsmen not sail against the wind because the sea is not good for waste.

Alexandra Manes is from Flores Island but lives in Terceira Island, Azores. She is a regular contributing writer for several Azorean newspapers, a political and cultural activist, and has served in the Azorean Parliament.

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).