In the Atlantic, geography is never innocent.
For centuries, the Azores have occupied that uneasy and strategic space where oceans cease to be distance and become corridors of power. Ships once crossed these waters carrying empire, commerce, migration, and war. Today, military aircraft, undersea cables, energy routes, satellite systems, and geopolitical tensions follow similar invisible paths across the same oceanic geography.
It was within this larger strategic framework that recent declarations by Marco Rubio, United States Secretary of State, gained particular significance. Rubio publicly distinguished Portugal as an exemplary European ally because of the facilities granted to the United States for the use of the Lajes Air Base on Terceira Island — a base whose logistical relevance once again became evident amid the growing tensions involving the United States, Israel, and Iran.
From the outset of the present conflict, it was foreseeable that Washington would seek operational support from allied nations possessing strategic military infrastructure stretching across the Atlantic and toward the Middle East. The Lajes base, because of its geographic position, continues to occupy a privileged role within those calculations, particularly in operations involving aerial refueling and transatlantic military mobility.
Yet the controversy now unfolding in Portugal and the Azores does not center solely upon the military use of the base itself. Rather, it revolves around the political process through which authorization was granted.
According to the editorial position advanced by veteran journalist Américo Natalino Viveiros in Correio dos Açores, Portuguese Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel committed what the newspaper characterizes as a serious political error by authorizing the American use of Lajes without first conducting broader institutional consultations.
The criticism is not directed at the Atlantic alliance itself, nor necessarily at the historic relationship between Portugal, the Azores, and the United States. Instead, the editorial argues that such a sensitive matter should have involved prior consultation with the President of the Azorean Government, political parties represented in the Portuguese Parliament, the President of the Republic, and even, according to the newspaper’s interpretation, the Portuguese Minister of Defense.
For the editorial, the issue touches not merely diplomacy, but democratic procedure and respect for the autonomous institutions born after the Carnation Revolution and the constitutional autonomy established in 1976.
The article revisits the long and complex historical relationship between the Azores and the United States military presence at Lajes, tracing it back to the original 1951 agreement signed between Portugal and the United States during the Cold War.
For decades, the base served as one of the central strategic pillars of NATO’s Atlantic architecture. During the authoritarian Estado Novo regime, Portugal used the Azores as a geopolitical bargaining instrument within international diplomacy and the United Nations.
After the democratic revolution of April 25, 1974, however, the emergence of Azorean Autonomy profoundly altered the political context surrounding the base.
According to the editorial, successive Azorean governments insisted that future negotiations involving Lajes should no longer exclude the region itself. Over time, negotiations involving Portuguese diplomats, foreign ministers, and American representatives culminated in the 1995 Agreement on Cooperation and Defense between Portugal and the United States.
That agreement redefined the partnership through a broader framework that included technical, labor, economic, and military cooperation components.
The editorial carefully recalls several core principles embedded within the agreement:
- The Lajes Air Base remains sovereign Portuguese territory.
- American military operations require prior Portuguese authorization.
- Military transit and landings remain subject to notification and consent procedures, except under specific NATO-related circumstances.
- Labor agreements regulate the rights and working conditions of Portuguese employees hired by U.S. forces.
- The American military presence has historically been associated with technical, economic, scientific, and defense-related compensations benefiting both Portugal and the Azores.
Beneath the legal and diplomatic language, however, lies a deeper Atlantic reality.
For the Azores, the Lajes base has never been merely a military installation. It has been an economic engine, a geopolitical symbol, a source of employment, a point of cultural contact with North America, and at times a source of political tension regarding sovereignty, autonomy, and dependency.
Every international crisis that reactivates the strategic value of the base inevitably revives older questions the islands have wrestled with for generations: Who decides? Who benefits? What role should the Azores play in global military strategy? And how can a small Atlantic archipelago preserve both democratic dignity and geopolitical relevance within alliances shaped by much larger powers?
The editorial ultimately suggests that the current controversy is not simply about airplanes landing on Terceira. It is about political maturity within the framework of autonomy itself.
Fifty years after autonomy, the Azores no longer see themselves merely as passive territory within geopolitical negotiations conducted elsewhere. Increasingly, they expect consultation, institutional respect, and recognition of their role within decisions that directly affect the region’s future.
The Atlantic may remain strategic. But the islands situated at its center increasingly insist on being heard, not merely used.
translated and adapted from an editorial in Correio dos Açores-Natalino Viveiros, director. Photos from JEdgardo Viveira
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