Coimbra, Portugal, May 14, 2025 (Lusa) - Portugal's president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, said on Wednesday that the European Union has a political problem of outdated leadership and institutional systems and needs to rebuild its support base.
In a speech at the closing of the 18th Cotec Europa summit at the Convento de São Francisco in Coimbra, he said, "Europe's problem is not economic, it is not technocratic, it is a political problem".
"It is a political problem because the time lost has been lost politically, the systems are obsolete, and the support base for the European project has been weakening," Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa added.
He argued that “the political problem must be resolved based on support for the European project”.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said, "there is no European Commission, no European Parliament, no European Council with the strength to take political decisions if they are questioned at the grassroots level in a considerable number of European Member States".
"It is impossible to solve the problem without rebuilding the internal support base, Member State by Member State, for the European project. By building conditions for European unity," he stressed, warning of the possibility of starting to operate “in groups of Member States”.
"There is no possible unity, nor is there any strong leadership possible in Europe as it stands, just as there is none at the national level. This is the challenge," he declared.
The European Union "has wasted time" and has failed to adapt its "leadership at European level"and "leadership in Member States"to the changes in the style and speed of communication that have taken place worldwide.
"A year has passed and the bulk of the implementation and realisation of the plans made a year ago has yet to be carried out," he pointed out.
According to the head of state, "European and national institutions have an outdated concept of leadership and institutional system" and the European Union has suffered from "a loss of leadership in science, technology, energy, finance, capital markets, the internal market - all political problems".
"The values are right. Europe has the right values. If others want to change values or forget values, they are wrong. We have the right values. He maintained that we do not have the instruments to effectively apply the right values politically, now and in the future.
In his view, "the support base, which in democracies is always the base of the moderates, has weakened". In contrast, "the base weakening the European project, which is radicalism, has grown", with the crises, delays and ineffectiveness in action, and also "due to external pressure from those who benefit from Europe's weakness".
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