Speaking at the solemn session marking the 50th anniversary of April 25, 1974, in the Assembly of the Republic, Paulo Núncio stated that the CDS-PP does not feel "the need to revisit colonial legacies".

"We do not want historical controversies or duties of reparation that seem to be imported from other contexts outside the Lusophone framework", he said.

"History is History, and our duty is the future, built and founded among sovereign states mirrored across the four continents without discrimination or prejudice between the northern and southern hemispheres, from the west to the east", he argued.

On Tuesday, the President of the Republic acknowledged Portugal's responsibilities for crimes committed during the colonial era and suggested paying reparations for past mistakes.

"In the CDS, we welcome the exceptional capacity that Portugal and the new Lusophone states have had, in just half a century, to reinvent their relationship, to establish a new proximity and to establish many good common interests. The Lusophone world is today an important dimension for all members of the CPLP, in the CDS we want to develop the Lusophone matrix that complements and adds to the European dimension of Portugal", stressed Paulo Núncio.

In his speech, the centrist parliamentary leader also welcomed the creation by the PSD/CDS-PP Government of a commission to commemorate the 50th anniversary of November 25.

"In 2024 we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of April 25. In 2025 we will finally celebrate, and not forget, the 50th anniversary of November 25, recalling the Fonte Luminosa, in Lisbon, and the democratic uprising that defeated extremism", he pointed out.

Paulo Núncio considered that this was a date "fundamental for full freedom and democracy", a landmark in the country's history, and argued that the commemorations should be "fair, plural and nationwide, made with militants and civilians, from institutions to schools".

"Celebrating April 25 without forgetting November 25 is a matter of historical memory and a sense of gratitude. If with April 25 the Estado Novo fell, November 25 brought full democracy and freedom", he stressed.

"By commemorating the 50th anniversary of April 25 and November 25, respectively in 2024 and 2025, we will be correcting this mistake that was made in the past and extending the commemorations of freedom for another year and a half. Through the joint commemoration of these two dates, we will, as a nation, restore faith and hope in our late, young, and still fragile democracy", defended Núncio.

The centrist parliamentary leader said that April 25 "should be welcomed" for having overthrown the Estado Novo and for ending "a regime where there were no free elections, freedom of the press and where people were imprisoned for political reasons".

Núncio also stressed that the Carnation Revolution, which took place 50 years ago, "allowed Portugal to approach and join Europe" and "put an end to the war in Africa, with high human costs and lives destroyed, but also families abandoned to their fate as a result of a disastrous process of decolonization".

The leader also indicated that between April 25 and November 25 "the PREC, Revolutionary Process in Progress, took place, marked by nationalizations, occupations, purges, arrests for the crime of opinion, agrarian reform, the attempt to silence various parties through violence" and also "by the desire to make revolutionary legitimacy prevail over democratic legitimacy".

The CDS-PP deputy also stated that "Portugal did not change its regime to become an insolvent state", nor to "be one of the comparatively poorest countries in Europe" and that "Portugal did not change its regime to have the highest youth emigration rate in Europe and one of the highest in the world" nor to "promote assisted suicide and euthanasia", highlighting "the new political cycle" with the PSD/CDS-PP Government.

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