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by Sebastião Bugalho
He continues to go to work every day. In the Sacramento office, always accompanied by Maria Cavaco Silva, there is no lack of a report from the European Commission or a study from the Bank of Portugal. He continues to write, sometimes memoirs, now scientific articles as an economist, and maintains a distant but attentive watch over the life of the country. His new book, A Modern Social Democracy Experience, is, in his own words, different from the rest. Cavaco, at 81, continues to be an active voice on the Council of State and punctuated his post-presidency with notable charges: the replacement of the Attorney General, euthanasia or, more recently, the mandatory discipline of Citizenship and Development. In this interview, he recalls the first conversations with Sá Carneiro, the Figueira congress, the nights that he erased the final borders of the constitutional revision of 89 with Constâncio and Vitorino and the projection of the great public works of their Governments, which fill the chapters from your last post. In him, as in all conversation, there is a constant: family. On the eve of celebrating 57 years of marriage, he describes family life as “a permanent joy.” In his spare time, he likes to watch Netflix. In politics, 35 years after the first victory, Aníbal Cavaco Silva is proud of what he has done. This is part of your story.
In his latest book, he claims that only his governments were truly social democratic in Portugal …
I was ten years old, more than eight with an absolute majority. They were unique conditions for the application of this social democracy. Imagine Dr. Passos Coelho, forced to implement a program to get Portugal out of bankruptcy, which was the legacy he had received from the previous socialist government. It had to be subordinate to a program that had been negotiated by the government that preceded it. I was ten years old … I was lucky … José Manuel Barroso had a very short government, Pinto Balsemão had a very short government and the same happened with Santana Lopes. I … some say that it is fortunate that I became Prime Minister at that time … But I arrived because I won the elections … Notice that our social democracy has an originality in its application, which is the fact that we started from a nationalized society without this being the fruit of the will of the people. While other countries admitted nationalization by going to the polls, by popular will, not here. All this nationalization of the Portuguese economy and society had occurred without listening to the Portuguese, without a democratic force behind it. It was this nationalized country that I received 35 years ago, when I was elected Prime Minister for the first time.
And do you think that your grandchildren will ever live in a Portugal with social democracy?
I keep saying that the principles of social democracy are highly topical. Let’s see them: Has the social consultation lost relevance? Access to health care? Equal opportunities? Income tax justice? Social justice and solidarity? Defense of the environment and spatial planning? These are very topical principles. If a government has the opportunity to apply them, I think it would be the best answer for Portugal and that we could get closer to the European average income more quickly. At this moment, Portugal runs a great risk: to be, if things do not change soon, the red lantern in terms of development in the countries of the euro zone. Who is still behind us? Latvia, which is currently growing faster than Portugal. Greece, recovering from its situation. Slovenia, Slovakia, Malta, Estonia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic are ahead of us. As a Portuguese, I would feel great sadness to see Portugal as the red lantern of Europe. Hence the great responsibility of today’s governments – and today’s politicians in general, including the opposition – to reverse this situation. Portugal has been falling on that list of countries in the European Union and the euro zone. In a study by the Bank of Portugal published at the end of last year, it is read that the income per capita Based on the purchasing power parity of 2018, compared to the European average, it was lower than what I left in 1995, when I finished my duties as Prime Minister. It’s not me who says it … It’s the Bank of Portugal.
And how to reverse this situation?
When we look at the European reality, we realize that coalition governments predominate. Therefore, it is not always easy to maintain the application of a coherent and consistent set of principles of social democracy. But you can find situations in which the majority of the dominant guidelines in a government are social democrats … Sá Carneiro had a fundamental quality to lead a social democratic government: he had leadership capacity. This is essential to apply a repeating schedule. Reformist.
Do you think that a coalition government in Portugal would achieve this reformist vein?
In Portugal? If you ask me about the future, I say yes … Right now, in times of pandemic … I don’t want to make assessments of the government’s performance. But if we look at the government that preceded this time – the so-called ‘gadget government’ – and taking as a reference the principles of social democracy, I think it would not be difficult to write a book demonstrating that the values of social democracy were applied very little. or almost nothing.
In what sense?
In the case of health, for example, one of the fundamental principles of social democracy is to place the interests of users at the center of health policy, ensuring quality services. In the four years of government of the ‘contraption’ this did not happen: lack of funding, reduction to 35 hours … All this is public knowledge.
Do you think it will have consequences in the management of the pandemic?
The pandemic poses enormous challenges for the governance of any country. For this reason, I am sorry, but I avoid publicly commenting on the government’s performance during this period. Being away from active politics, I do not want to comment on the political forces that are in government or the political forces that are – or say they are – in opposition.
But staying, then, talking about the government he assumed, which governed from 2015 to 2019. He feels that the fact that he forced the written commitment of a series of safeguards between the PS and its parliamentary partners contributed to the political stability experienced in those years? Does the author of this stability feel that it does not exist today? At the book launch, he criticized the ‘sterile and inconsistent tension’ we are currently experiencing …
Well … I repeat again that I do not want to comment on current political and governmental life … What I can answer you – and which I confirmed in the memoirs I wrote – does not entirely coincide with what you are saying. Dr. António Costa had signed a document that they called “joint positions”, with Bloco de Esquerda, PCP and Os Verdes. He handed me these documents, I analyzed them and found some important omissions. At that time, I wanted to give myself the maximum guarantees from the Prime Minister so that, by taking possession of that Government, I would achieve a certain stability, a certain durability and a certain international credibility. Whether or not then, it is no longer my responsibility because I stopped being President of the Republic … But it was essential that Portugal’s international commitments be respected, in particular with the European Union, in the Eurozone and in Defense, in NATO . Before nominating the Prime Minister, I also gave him a written document, asking him to confirm a series of doubts he had about the motions of confidence, the social consultation, the financial system, and he replied, also in writing. My choice at that time was not easy, as I could not dissolve Parliament. And leaving the government that had not passed Parliament in the management, waiting for the next president of the Republic to arrive and make a decision after him … I thought I should not do that.
In his post-presidential term, he wrote three books in four years, gave two important interviews, took a public position on his party’s election results, and accepted an invitation to speak at JSD’s summer college. Would you call it an active post-presidency?
Not really … I’ve been pretty restrained. I also went to present the book of a man who worked with me, Joaquim Sarmento, whom I consider one of the Portuguese economists with the greatest knowledge of public finances and with strategic thinking for Portugal. But I have turned down dozens of invitations to speak and write. I have avoided. The statements I made were very limited … The non-renewal of Joana Marques Vidal … Euthanasia … I think this is one of the most serious things that deputies currently face: the question of life and death. We must take into account what has happened in a country like the Netherlands, in which a doctor, who had initially been in favor of euthanasia, granted an interview, which came out here in Portugal, in which he claims to have witnessed of pressure from relatives and doctors for the elderly they agreed to be killed. I think it is one of the most morally serious things our Parliament can do. There are no more than a dozen countries in the world that allow it. And we, who are almost the last in terms of development in the eurozone, with the poverty we have and the deaths of the elderly in homes that have been, are we going to pass a law that alleviates the pressure on the elderly to let themselves be killed? ? It is something that I cannot morally conceive that the representatives of the Portuguese people accept.
In the book, through a humorous episode between snakes and frogs, he says that good European intentions can sometimes produce bad results. Did you detect this trend in more structural aspects?
I was Prime Minister, and perhaps I was also lucky there, at a time when the big European countries paid special attention to economic and social cohesion. In general, the proposals put forward by Jacques Delors were accepted – and well accepted – to substantially strengthen solidarity in relation to the less developed countries, of which Portugal was a great beneficiary. The approval of a Special Program for the Portuguese Industry, which now even wants to reactivate, a program for the modernization of the textile industry, a special program for the Azores and Madeira … There was always a special attention to provide the large community budget amounts of money to support cohesion countries. But, you see, the support programs for Portugal after my government were even bigger than the ones I received at that time … So, don’t say that the works we did were only due to community funds. Of course, they were important. But the eng. Guterres received even more and Eng. Socrates certainly received no less.
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