Public Library and Regional Archive of Ponta Delgada

May 23, 2026

Opening Address

Good morning to you all. Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, honored participants. I would like to begin by thanking everyone for being present at this Congress of Autonomy, on this gray day wrapped in heavy mist, a day that allows us to feel upon our very bodies the true meaning of Atlantic island life.

Allow me first a very special word of gratitude to all the participants in the various panels, for your generosity, collaboration, and willingness to contribute to this collective reflection.

To the Public Library and Regional Archive of Ponta Delgada, for graciously hosting this initiative.

To the media present here today — and to those absent as well. In a time when information is so often polarized, fragmented, and uncertain, a free and courageous press remains essential: a press capable of standing firmly, without hesitation, as a critical witness to society rather than merely an amplifier of entrenched interests or a hostage to political and financial contingencies. It is in this way that more conscious, healthier, and more enduring communities are built.

And above all, a heartfelt word of thanks to all those who, in a living demonstration of democratic participation and citizenship, chose to dedicate this Saturday — or part of it — to helping us think about the Azores. Because that is, ultimately, the fundamental purpose of this gathering: to think the Azores.

More than a celebration or a simple commemoration of an anniversary, this Congress seeks to be an exercise in citizenship. A space for civic participation, for the free exchange of ideas, and for an open and plural reflection on the past, present, and future of the Autonomous Region of the Azores, at the very moment we mark the fiftieth anniversary of that great constitutional achievement born of April: Azorean political and administrative autonomy.

To think about the Azores without facile slogans or excessive noise. Without the childish immediacy that so often dominates public debate. To think about them with time, depth, critical spirit, and a sense of responsibility.

The Azores are not an abstract entity for bureaucratic use, nor a romantic idea reserved for poetic ornament. They are the union of nine distinct realities that converge at the same point of origin, destiny, and shared belonging.

This year we celebrate fifty years of the political and administrative autonomy of the Azores. Fifty years. And if you will allow me a personal note, this fiftieth anniversary coincides, more or less, with my own age. I was born in that inaugural year of change and hope that was 1974.

And this, in itself, is a date far too important to be reduced to ceremonial protocol, obligatory speeches, or institutional commemorations. It deserves reflection. It deserves debate. Above all, it deserves the participation of the Azorean people.

Because autonomy is not merely an administrative model or a constitutional conquest. Autonomy is a collective construction. It is a door left open toward the future.

And to this day — to adapt a famous quotation — it remains the worst form the Azoreans have found to govern themselves, except for all the others.

Through it, the Azores gained the capacity to decide, affirmed their identity, and acquired the freedom to define their own path within the national, European, and Atlantic context.

But we also know that no political achievement survives solely upon the past. Autonomy cannot merely be memory. It must become a capacity for action. A capacity to answer the challenges of the present and to prepare the future.

And the challenges facing the Azores today are demanding ones.

We live in a world undergoing rapid transformation: marked by economic instability, climate change, technological upheaval, demographic pressures, and the growing erosion of democracies, political life, and public life itself, as people drift further each day from the public sphere, from the common good, and from the life of their communities.

The Azores are not isolated from that world. Nor are they immune to its changes. We feel them in the economy, in transportation, in healthcare, in housing, in the difficulty of retaining young people, in the aging of the population, and in social inequalities. And we feel them as well in the way we relate to one another and in the way we regard the collective interest. Trapped within nine distinct insularities — often nineteen. Or, as a friend of mine once said, with a Holy Spirit that scarcely glances toward the Holy Spirit celebration next door.

For this reason, this Congress was not conceived to manufacture artificial consensus, nor to nourish island rivalries, political trenches, or personal ambitions. It was designed to create space for a serious, frank, open, and plural debate about who we are and, above all, about who we wish to become.

Throughout the day we will host five panels dedicated to different dimensions of autonomy — human, competitive, productive, sustainable, and future-oriented.

And we deliberately chose, for these five panels, people of different origins, paths, experiences, and sensibilities. Because we believe that strong autonomy is not built through uniform thought or sterile unanimity.

It is built through diversity, through the willingness to listen, and through the democratic confrontation of ideas. It is built as well within the very multiplicity of our nine island identities, identities that will always be stronger the greater their union and their Commitment to the Azores.

We also wished for this Congress to be an initiative born of civil society. In a time when we so often expect everything to come from institutions, it seemed important to return this debate to the citizens themselves. Because autonomy belongs to everyone. It does not belong to a party, a government, or even to a generation.

It belongs to the Azorean people. To those of today and, above all, to those of tomorrow — those toward whom we must direct our greatest ambitions and hopes.

It belongs to those who live here. To those who left. To those who wish to remain and to those who dream of returning. To those born upon these islands and also to those who, coming from other geographies, chose the Azores as their home.

And it belongs to all those who continue to believe that it is possible to build a better future for this land and for those who, day after day, make their lives upon it.

I would also like to leave an important note.

To speak of the future of the Azores requires ambition. But it also requires maturity. Neither the permanent pessimism that so often consumes us nor uncritical triumphalism serves us well.

We must confront our problems and challenges with honesty and realism, but also with confidence in our collective capacity to resolve them.

And that sometimes requires knowing how to say no.

It requires making choices according to rational criteria, with fairness among the islands and with a sense of responsibility, thinking of the collective future rather than fragmentary, sectorial, or purely individual interests — or the mere parliamentary arithmetic of the next electoral cycle.

The Azores possess resources, talent, knowledge, creativity, and a unique strategic position. But above all, they possess people. And it will always be through people that autonomy must be measured.

By the capacity to create opportunity. By the capacity to generate social justice. By the capacity to guarantee dignity, cohesion, and hope.

And above all, by the capacity to generate true autonomy: that fundamental freedom through which each person may become what they desire to be.

We sincerely hope that this Congress may contribute, even modestly, to elevating the quality of public debate in the region. Combating insular rivalries, sterile unanimities, and the resigned culture of “letting things drift,” as well as the easy demagoguery of café populism through which dreams, projects, and legitimate aspirations are so often destroyed.

May effective solutions emerge from here, but also important questions. New ideas. And above all, new bridges of dialogue between the islands and their people. Between generations. Between different ways of imagining and understanding the idea of the Azores.

And may there emerge a clearer awareness that the future of these islands depends, above all, upon our capacity to think collectively about a common future beyond the short term or the private interests of any given moment.

For our part, we assume the commitment to keep alive this flame of the free exchange of ideas, of engaged reflection capable of generating solutions for the future of the Azores. This session will be recorded and made available online through the website Compromisso com os Açores, where further information regarding this initiative may later be followed. Minutes will also be compiled and placed at the disposal of all interested parties, whether public institutions or citizens themselves.

Thank you all for your presence.

I wish you an excellent Congress and a day of vibrant, free, and participatory debate.

Thank you very much.

Pedro Arruda