Political and diplomatic figures from Portugal, the European Union and the United States gather on Terceira today to discuss security, the blue economy, space, undersea cables and the enduring human bridge of the Portuguese diaspora
ANGRA DO HEROÍSMO — Geography has often determined the destiny of islands. In the Azores, however, geography has also given the archipelago a place in the larger history of the Atlantic—a position between continents that, at decisive moments, has transformed nine small islands into a strategic meeting point between Europe and North America.
That enduring Atlantic vocation provides the backdrop for the conference “Transatlantic Relations: The Role of the Azores,” taking place today in Angra do Heroísmo. Organized by Portuguese Member of the European Parliament Paulo do Nascimento Cabral, the gathering begins at 10:30 a.m. at the Terceira Mar Hotel and is open to the general public.
The conference brings together figures representing different dimensions of the transatlantic relationship. Participants in the roundtable include Devin Nunes, Chairman of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board in the United States; Ana Isabel Xavier, Portugal’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation; Sebastião Bugalho, Member of the European Parliament; and João Aguiar Machado, ambassador and former European Union representative to the World Trade Organization. The discussion will be moderated by Helena Fagundes.
The program also includes remarks by Vânia Ferreira, Mayor of Praia da Vitória, and Fátima Amorim, Mayor of Angra do Heroísmo. Artur Lima, Vice-President of the Regional Government of the Azores, is scheduled to close the proceedings.
For Paulo do Nascimento Cabral, who serves on the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with the United States, the conference comes at a moment when the Atlantic is once again assuming heightened importance in international affairs.
“The relationship between the Azores and the United States, integrated into the broader relationship between Portugal, the European Union and the United States, represents a strategic dimension that must be valued and deepened,” Cabral stated.
His argument reaches beyond the historical importance of the archipelago. In an international environment marked by changing security concerns, economic competition and technological dependence, Cabral maintains that the Atlantic has again become fundamental to the security, economy and international projection of both Europe and the United States.
The Azores, in this vision, should not be understood merely as islands situated somewhere between two continents. Their location gives them potential relevance to several of the defining questions of the twenty-first-century Atlantic: security and defense, the blue economy, access to space and the protection of submarine communications cables.
Cabral has therefore advocated what he describes as a new European strategy for the Atlantic, one in which the Azores would occupy a meaningful place because of both their geography and their longstanding relationships across the ocean.
Yet the Atlantic bridge discussed in Angra today is not made solely of geopolitics. It is also made of people.
Cabral emphasizes the importance of the Portuguese and Azorean diaspora in the United States, describing it as a dynamic resource whose members have reached positions of considerable influence in American society. He specifically points to Devin Nunes as an example of how Portuguese-descended Americans can contribute to strengthening relationships across the Atlantic.
This human dimension is particularly significant for the Azores. For generations, migration carried thousands of Azoreans toward the United States, creating communities whose familial and cultural connections with the islands survived the distance of the ocean. What began as emigration gradually became something larger: a transatlantic network of identities, institutions, families and memories.
The conference therefore asks a question considerably broader than where the Azores are located on a map. It asks what that location—and the centuries of history surrounding it—might mean for the future.
For Cabral, the objective is precisely to consider how the archipelago’s Atlantic centrality can help bring Portugal, the European Union and the United States closer together while reinforcing the political, economic, strategic and human ties connecting both shores.
Opening the session to the public also gives the gathering a civic dimension. Organizers intend the conference to provide a space where different sectors of Azorean society can participate in a wider conversation about the present and future of transatlantic relations. There is something fitting about that conversation taking place in Angra do Heroísmo, a city whose history has for centuries been inseparable from the movement of people, ships, ideas and power across the Atlantic.
The maps of the world have changed. Empires have disappeared. Alliances have been created and transformed. New technologies have replaced the ships that once made Angra an indispensable harbor on the ocean routes. But the geography remains.
And perhaps therein lies the larger question being considered today on Terceira: whether the Azores can transform the geography they inherited into a renewed Atlantic vocation for the century ahead—not simply as islands between continents, but as islands capable of bringing continents closer together.
Based on a story in Diário Insular-José Lourenço, director. Photos from JEdgardo Vieira.