Luís Garcia argues that the next chapter of self-government must strengthen cooperation between regional and local institutions, while honoring the generations that transformed the islands over the past half-century
The history of Autonomy in the Azores was not written only in parliamentary chambers, government offices, or the great political debates that shaped the constitutional architecture of modern Portugal. It was also written much closer to the ground—in parishes and municipalities, along roads once waiting to be built, in schools and community halls, and through the persistent work of men and women who understood that democracy acquires its deepest meaning when it reaches the places where people actually live.
It was this connection between Autonomy, local government, and the transformation of everyday life that Luís Garcia, President of the Legislative Assembly of the Autonomous Region of the Azores, emphasized during recent celebrations marking the Day of the Parish of Feteira.
“Developing a parish and a municipality is developing the Azores,” Garcia declared, encapsulating a vision of regional progress in which the archipelago cannot be understood merely as a political or administrative whole. The Azores are also the sum of their communities—each island, municipality, parish, neighborhood, and generation contributing to the larger construction of a democratic region.
His remarks acquire particular resonance as the Azores commemorate 50 years of constitutional Autonomy and democratic local government. Half a century is sufficiently long for achievements once considered extraordinary to become ordinary, and Garcia warned precisely against this erosion of historical memory.
The transformation of the islands over five decades, he suggested, has been so profound that younger generations—and sometimes even those who witnessed the beginning of the process—may be tempted to believe that the conditions of contemporary Azorean life have always existed.
They have not.
“We sometimes forget where we started from and are tempted to think that things were always this way,” Garcia observed.
That simple reminder contains an important lesson about democracy itself. Progress has a peculiar tendency to erase the memory of the conditions it overcame. Roads, schools, public services, infrastructure, greater social mobility and stronger democratic institutions eventually become part of the expected landscape. What disappears from view is the political effort, civic participation, public investment and human perseverance required to create them.
For Garcia, remembering that journey should not become an exercise in nostalgia. It should instead constitute an act of democratic responsibility.
The achievements of the past 50 years, he argued, should make Azoreans proud, but they also impose an obligation upon younger generations: to care for what they have inherited, continue it, and deepen it.
There is an important distinction here. To celebrate what has been achieved is not to claim that everything has been accomplished. Garcia explicitly defended continued ambition for greater development and new achievements. Yet societies, like individuals, risk becoming historically impoverished when the desire for what remains undone prevents them from recognizing what previous generations succeeded in building.
“We naturally desire more achievements and more development. And that is a good thing,” he said. “But that ambition for new accomplishments should not prevent us from valuing and celebrating the achievements of the past and present.”
As an example, the President of the Azorean Parliament pointed to investments being implemented through Portugal’s Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), emphasizing the importance of recognizing progress even when projects are undertaken amid difficult circumstances.
But his broader argument looked beyond any individual investment program. It concerned the architecture of Azorean governance itself.
For Garcia, the next cycle of Autonomy should deepen the principle of subsidiarity, strengthening the relationship between regional institutions and local government. The future of Azorean self-government, in this understanding, is not simply about what powers the Region exercises in relation to Lisbon. It is also about how power is distributed, coordinated and brought closer to citizens within the archipelago itself.
“The future inevitably involves strengthening and coordinating regional and local powers,” he stated.
This may ultimately be one of the most significant questions facing Azorean Autonomy as it enters its second half-century. The first 50 years established institutions, expanded democratic participation and profoundly altered the material and social landscape of the islands. The coming decades will inevitably ask how those institutions can become more responsive, more participatory and more closely connected to communities whose realities differ considerably across nine islands.
The ceremony in Feteira also carried an important dimension of remembrance through its tribute to former presidents of the Parish Council. Garcia welcomed the recognition of those who had served before, reminding those present that contemporary achievements rest upon work undertaken by previous generations.
“We are here because someone made the journey before us,” he said, referring both to Autonomy and to democratic local government.
Perhaps that is the larger meaning contained within the celebration.
Autonomy is not merely a constitutional provision. Democracy is not merely an election. Local government is not merely administration. They are forms of proximity—ways of reducing the distance between institutions and human lives.
The history of the modern Azores has been constructed precisely through that proximity: people serving communities, communities strengthening municipalities, municipalities helping to transform islands, and islands together giving substance to Autonomy.
Fifty years later, the work remains unfinished, as democratic work must always remain unfinished.
The next half-century will belong to another generation. But it will begin where the previous one leaves the shore—with an inheritance to protect, imperfections to correct, ambitions still to fulfill, and the enduring understanding that to build the smallest community with dignity is already to build the Azores themselves.
Based on a Press Release. Photos sent by the Regional Assembly from G Photography.