At the solemn commemoration of 50 years of Azorean Autonomy, President of the Regional Government José Manuel Bolieiro called for a new stage built upon the unity of the nine islands, the transformation of geography into opportunity, and an Azores increasingly capable of asserting itself as an innovative, sustainable and strategically relevant Atlantic region.
Fifty years ago, the political map of the Azores changed without altering a single coastline. The islands remained separated by the same Atlantic, but for the first time they possessed their own democratically elected Parliament and a new institutional capacity to decide collectively from within the archipelago. Speaking at the Legislative Assembly in Horta during the solemn commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Autonomy, José Manuel Bolieiro returned to that founding moment while arguing that the achievement of 1976 should now become the foundation for another transformation: moving the Azores from the historical experience of isolation toward a new understanding of Atlantic centrality.
The ceremony, presided over by President of the Assembly of the Republic José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, brought together representatives of national and regional institutions, former political leaders and members of the first generation of Azorean parliamentarians. Bolieiro recalled the first regional elections of June 27, 1976, and the subsequent opening of the Regional Assembly at the Sociedade Amor da Pátria in Horta, where 43 deputies began the first democratic mandate of Political and Legislative Autonomy. “For the first time, the Azores had a Parliament of their own,” he said. Each island acquired its own political voice, while the archipelago acquired something even larger: the democratic capacity to participate directly in determining its collective destiny.
For Bolieiro, the essential achievement was not simply institutional. “We became a political, social and economic Region capable of deciding from within,” he said, describing Autonomy as part of the democratic maturation of Portugal itself. Portuguese democracy, he argued, becomes stronger when it recognizes the diversity of its territories and peoples, although he also maintained that the full understanding of Portugal as a decentralized state has yet to be achieved. Autonomy, in this reading, remains an evolving project rather than a completed constitutional event.
Nine Voices, One Azores
A central theme of Bolieiro’s address was the relationship between island identity and regional unity. Every island must retain its voice, he argued, but those elected to the regional Parliament ultimately represent the Azores as a whole. “The opportunity of each island must be a collective ambition of the Azores,” he said. Likewise, the difficulties experienced by one island should become a concern for the entire Region—and, where appropriate, for the country.
This balance has always been one of the fundamental challenges of an archipelagic democracy. São Miguel is not Flores; Terceira is not Corvo; Pico is not Santa Maria. Geography, population, economies and needs differ profoundly. Bolieiro’s argument was that mature Autonomy should not erase those differences but transform them into complementarities. “True Azorean Political Autonomy is made from the plurality and unity of its diversity,” he said.
Turning Geography into Opportunity
Looking toward the next fifty years, Bolieiro proposed a significant change in the way the Azores understand themselves. The Autonomy created to respond to the disadvantages of insularity, he argued, must increasingly become an instrument for developing the islands’ distinctive capacities. Small scale can allow experimentation; nine different island realities can provide opportunities for comparison; and regional political authority can make it possible to adapt policies more closely to local circumstances.
He described this future as a passage “from a Region that had to overcome isolation to a Region capable of asserting its centrality,” and from distance from traditional centers of decision-making toward becoming “a centrality in the Atlantic.” He also called for an “autonomy of knowledge,” envisioning the Azores as increasingly relevant to Portugal, the European Union and transatlantic relations.
The language is ambitious, but it captures one of the most important questions facing the archipelago after half a century of self-government. Geography has historically been treated as an obstacle to overcome. Bolieiro proposes that the next stage should ask where that same geography can become an advantage—in knowledge, innovation, sustainability and Portugal’s relationship with the wider Atlantic.
The anniversary therefore becomes both celebration and obligation. Bolieiro summarized the task ahead as preserving the identity of each island, strengthening the unity of the archipelago, transforming geography into opportunity and affirming the Azores as an innovative, sustainable and relevant Atlantic region.
Fifty years ago, Autonomy gave the nine islands a new political architecture through which they could speak for themselves. The next fifty will test what they choose to say with that voice. The ocean between the Azores and the world has not grown smaller. What may change is the meaning assigned to that ocean: no longer merely the distance that separates the islands from the centers of power, but the Atlantic space that can place them, once again, at the center of something larger.
Based on a story in Diário dos Açores-Paulo Viveiros, director. Photos from the Goverment of the Azores.