Lisbon, April 21, 2025 (Lusa) - The Governor of the Bank of Portugal said on Monday, at a conference marking the 50th anniversary of the 25th April revolution, that there are "no completed revolutions" and that current times are a wake-up call and require a spirit of transformation.
"There are no completed revolutions. The current times put us on alert, require more integration, greater coordination, more information and even more analysis and strengthening of trust," said Mário Centeno in the speech with which he opened the conference ‘Speaking in Freedom’, taking place this afternoon at the Money Museum in Lisbon.
According to Centeno, Portugal is currently a "society in transition", whether in terms of immigration, the economic and financial dimension or convergence with the European Union, and the challenges that exist require a return to "the spirit of transformation that has underpinned and defined recent years".
Despite the challenges, for the governor, Portugal today is an example in many ways, whether it's the importance of social security or the freedom of each person to express themselves.
"Portugal is an example of how a country can develop, open to the outside world, with diversity, equity, and inclusion, D.E.I. It almost feels like saying it in English," he joked.
Centeno also gave a brief portrait of what Portugal was like in 1974, a poor and undeveloped country, from the economy, to education (in 1974, 26% of the general public was illiterate), to living conditions (most houses had no water or electricity) and health (life expectancy was 68 years in 1974 and today it is 82 years) and the devaluation of women.
He also pointed out that, immediately after the 25th of April, there was a landmark economic measure, the institution of the minimum wage. According to Centeno, there was ‘so much ambition’ in the value of the minimum wage that 60% of workers began to receive the minimum wage and it was only in 2017 that the minimum wage began to have the same real value (discounting inflation) as it had in 1974.
Centeno also recalled that, on 25 April, he was seven years old and lived in the Algarve, that on the 26th he didn't have any classes and that the revolution gave him "the chance to read books that his father had locked away, to watch cartoons that had never existed in previous childhoods" and that for a while he was surprised that on the other bank of the Guadiana river, in Spain, "they lived under a very different regime".
Regarding the institution he leads, Mário Centeno said that the "Bank of Portugal is a child of the revolution", a child "of the liberal revolution in the 19th century and a child of the democratic revolution" of 25 April 1974.
In 1974, the Bank of Portugal was a mostly privately owned bank responsible for issuing currency in mainland Portugal, the Azores and Madeira (the then ‘metropolis’). It was nationalised in September 1974 (when the issuing banks were nationalised) and became wholly owned by the Portuguese state.
In the conference room at the Money Museum, the car of the governor of the Bank of Portugal in 1974, António Pinto Barbosa, is on display. It's an old, well-restored black Mercedes-Benz, which, when the Bank of Portugal was nationalised, became the property of the state and was used by Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho. In the Mainland Operational Command (COPCON).
Mário Centeno was minister of finance in António Costa's Socialist Party (PS) governments (2015-2020). He has been governor of the Bank of Portugal since July 2020, and his term ends this year (it can be renewed).
For months, he was one of the names put forward as a possible candidate for country's president by the Socialist Party, but in January he announced in an interview with state broadcaster RTP3 that he would not be a candidate in the next elections.
Before the ‘Falar em Liberdade’ conference began, as the audience entered and took their seats, a song about the Bank of Portugal was played, a sort of anthem, whose refrain sings that ‘the bank is a believer, the balance of the scales’.
Questioned by Lusa, an official source from the Bank of Portugal said that the lyrics and music were by Carlos Tê and the interpretation was by musicians Mário Barreiros, Pedro Santos, Rui David and Pedro Vidal.
The conference will also feature a speech by Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman.
Throughout the afternoon, personalities from various fields of activity will take part, such as comedian Herman José, musicians Sérgio Godinho, Dino D'Santiago and Ana Bacalhau or writers Mia Couto and Lídia Jorge.
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