Aguiar Branco believes that “all the most extremist ideas should be a cause for concern” and maintains that the only way to combat them is to create “conditions for better governance” that satisfies the people.
Follow our live blog on political news here
The speaker of the Portuguese parliament warned on Monday that democracy “is not a given” and “requires a lot of work”, expressing his concern about “extremist ideas” following the victory of the far right in Sunday’s elections in France.
Costa promises “availability, collaboration and attention” to Montenegro and “without the need for translation”
José Pedro Aguiar Branco spoke to journalists on the sidelines of the conference promoted by the Academia Nossa Europa, linked to the Jacques Delors Institute, within the framework of the program “Jacques Delors Agora, The Next Generation in Europe”, which is meeting in Lisbon, until Thursday, 130 young people from some 30 countries, in the presence of senior representatives of the European Union (EU).
União Nacional in the lead with 33.15% and Renascença in decline. The results of a historic night with the highest participation in recent decades
I think that everything worriesAll the most extremist ideas should be a cause for concern, but, I repeat, the way to combat populism, to combat the most radical ideas, is precisely to create the conditions for better governance, to be able to satisfy the interests and needs of the people, and in this case the youngest, of there are more opportunities to be able to fulfill oneself from the point of view of work, from the point of view of also being able to create more solid structures for one’s own development,” he said.
When asked by the Lusa agency to comment on the fact that this type of discourse has been used for more than a decade, despite successive warnings against populism, Aguiar Branco admitted that it was, but maintained that “democracy can take a long time.” time”.
Only with him debate, with the discussion and how confrontation of ideas that’s where you go. I don’t know what other modality in democracy is to create the conditions so that our ideas are those that lead to majorities. It is with the confrontation of ideas, it is with the debate, it is with participationIt is by bringing voters and elected officials closer, it is through initiatives of this type,” he responded.
“It may take one more year, two or three more, but it is the only acceptable methodology so that we can, in a climate of peace and mutual respect, make our ideas a reality. There is no other way. In other words, it is not because we are silenced, it is not because we do not give freedom of expression, it is not because we cannot confront ideas that we can affirm democracy. It is precisely the opposite. Democracy takes a lot of work,” he continued.
Aguiar Branco said that building democracy means carrying out civic intervention every day, but he again admitted to past mistakes.
Sometimes, perhaps, in the past, welfare societies thought that so much civic intervention and so much work was no longer necessary to be able to build democracy on a day-to-day basis. Perhaps the data was acquired, it was thought that freedom or democracy was taken for granted. It’s not. History shows that this is not the case, but what does it force us to do? More participationmore intervention, just as we are doing here today,” he said.
“It is the only way we have in democracy to get people to see themselves in the most moderate dimensions, and this is the effort that the European Union will undoubtedly make, and that parliaments will also make.” as ours will doand that I myself, aligning myself with a more centrist dimension, I would say, will also strive to do,” concluded the President of the Portuguese Assembly of the Republic.
The National Union (Rassemblement Nationale, in the original French) was the party with the most votes in the first round of the French legislative elections on Sunday, with 33% of the votes, ahead of the left-wing coalition New Popular Front (NFP, 28.5). %) and the centrist Together for the Republic, which is part of President Emmanuel Macron’s party (22%).
Can Macron and the left stop Le Pen’s party from winning? Complex “triangulations” leave everything open in the 2nd round
The second round of legislative elections will take place next Sunday, July 7.
Source: Observadora
