It is now exactly three months – a quarter! – when a summit between the governments of the Republic and the regional governments of the Azores and Madeira should have taken place.

The room in the majestic Terra Nostra in Furnas was already decorated and ready for the meeting.

Luís Montenegro decided, at the last minute, to postpone the meeting when it became known that there were going to be elections in Madeira.

In other words, because of an election in one of the Autonomous Regions, the other is affected by the agenda of Their Excellencies in Lisbon.

Only in Portugal!

It’s been three long months in a crucial year for investment agreements under the PRR, and the most pressing issues, at least for the Azoreans, remain in the moldy drawers of Terreiro do Paço.

One is travel between the Azores and the mainland, which costs 119 euros for Azorean residents and 89 euros for students.

The Prime Minister himself made the announcement at the end of the PSD/Açores Congress, which took place in October (five months ago!) in Ponta Delgada.

At the time, Luís Montenegro also defended a revision of the Regional Finance Law “to give justice and predictability to the Region’s accounts”, stating in the same place that “in seven months it has done more than the PS did in seven years”.

Four months have passed – not seven – and the situation is as follows: no cheaper tickets, no new Regional Finance Law.

Bolieiro said at the time that it was “a priority issue”!…

That’s how this country is going, with announcements at the speed of a Ferrari and action at the speed of an Espírito Santo-style oxcart.

This week, the President of the Legislative Assembly of the Azores, Luís Garcia, gave a superb speech to his national counterpart, Aguiar Branco, warning of the urgency of revising the Finance Law.

Given the general consensus among all the parties, we can’t understand the delay, nor why we have to wait for a summit, which is still waiting for the Madeiran impasse.

We risk losing this consensual environment at the present juncture and putting this and other urgent issues on the heated months of the local and presidential election campaign. Disagreement between parties is obvious, and the environment is ripe for the Constitutional Court’s ravenous appetite to disapprove of anything that benefits the Autonomous Regions.

But there’s more: the leader of the PS-Azores, Francisco César, this week surpassed José Manuel Bolieiro’s government by forming a consensus to achieve a new model for maritime freight transportation to the Azores in the Republic.

This issue has been on the agenda for so long, but the coalition governments and the PSD have been holding their hats, surely still waiting for the blessed Summit that has always been postponed.

The President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Ponta Delgada also came out this week to warn of the urgency of the problem, which is affecting all the islands. It is no coincidence that there is a shortage of products on store shelves, even on the larger islands, something that has never been seen before.

The time of politics is not the same as the time of life for ordinary citizens.

Politicians need to be realistic, getting down to the daily problems that citizens face, while sitting in their comfortable offices.

There needs to be more action and less talk, more problems solved, and fewer sideshows.

Let the so-called summit be held with Madeira when the Madeirans decide who governs them. Still, we can’t be in this absurd dependency, with another law on hold, that of the shared management of the sea, sailing in the depths of an inconceivable postponement.

Our region and parliament have already given a disgraceful image with that thing they called “Autonomy Reform”, which has been gathering mold in the drawers of parliamentarians for almost a decade.

There’s no reason for the Azores government to set off for Lisbon and knock on the door in S. Bento with a bang to say what’s up.

After all, are they friends or not?

Osvaldo Cabral is the Executive Director of Diário dos Açores.

NOVIDADES will feature occasional opinion pieces from various leading thinkers, writers, and editorial boards 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).