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THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
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said, “my homeland is the Portuguese lan-
guage”, the truth is that the language became
the tongue spoken on every continent, espe-
cially South America (Brazil) and Africa.
The philosopher Eduardo Lourenço used the
metaphor of an island to describe Portugal, as if
the country were an Ithaca to which travellers
returned like Ulysses, the symbol of an adven-
turous wanderlust that could characterize the
Portuguese.
On the economic and social plane, Portugal
has felt the confrontation between scarcity and
desire. It took to the Atlantic for lack of cereals
and gold and took to emigration for want of
sustenance. Yet it also fell into the habit of living
beyond its means with the lucrative trade from
Asia in the 16
th
century and the gold from Brazil
in the 18
th
century.
There has always been the dilemma here be-
tween “anchorage and transport”, as the think-
er Antonio Sergio put it, between creating a
solid and stable European base, or simply enjoy-
ing commercial movement.
There has also been a confrontation be-
tween centralism and municipalism (promoted
by and allied with central power), of the mes-
sianism of the state and the ancestral weight of
individualism, of a certain improvisation, of
rashness, of an excess of imagination, of the
supposed “gentle ways”, and even “the very
fear of existing”, according to the thinker and
essayist José Gil. In this context, we cannot for-
get, for example, that the referendum of 1998
called to decide on dividing the country into au-
tonomous regions returned a clear rejection of
that formula.
A huge capacity to adapt coexists with a fre-
quent recourse to the short term and with ex-
cessive faith in good luck and in fate or destiny.
In any case, thinking in a European context,
by having joined the European Community
without renouncing its bond with the global
world, particularly the Portuguese-speaking
countries, the democratic Portugal after the
Carnation Revolution of April 1974 has occu-
pied a place on the international stage marked
by history. It rests above all on a vocation for
stabilisation and taking on a role of fostering
dialogue.
A positive European integration
The participation of Portugal and Spain in
European construction has been an experience
of unequivocally positive aspects. However, those
aspects must be understood and explored.
Lorenzo Natali, the European Commissioner
who played a decisive role in the enlargement
of the European Communities, laid down in
1985 and carried out in 1986, said on several
occasions that the membership of the Iberian
countries would mark the start of a new phase
of European construction.
In fact, the history of the Peninsula in its pro-
jection across the global world on all continents
has enabled making the most of all the potenti-
alities of an open integration - still far from
achieving or consolidating all its virtues -, pre-
venting the European project from proceeding
in a closed manner, focusing only on a logic of
self-satisfaction.
While it is true that we have seen contradic-
tory signals, aggravated by the crisis of 2008,
open European integration is still relevant for
Portugal and retains a clear and necessary cur-
rency. Indeed, the relations of the Portuguese
and Spanish economies with the economies of
the emerging countries warrant special atten-
tion, which will depend in the future on the ca-
pacity for innovation and the synergies that may
be created between them.