"The State should be as limited as possible. The State should transfer all its powers to the region. The region has the vocation of being the State of the Azores. And we have the vocation of being Portugal here", he defended.

Mota Amaral, who led the Government of the Azores between 1976 and 1995, spoke this afternoon in the village of Madalena, on the island of Pico, at the IX Regional Meeting of Parish Mayors of the Azores, organized by the Regional Delegation of the Azores of the National Association of Parishes (ANAFRE).

The former governor participated in a panel on "Regional Autonomy and Local Power", which also featured Vasco Cordeiro, who was president of the Azorean executive between 2012 and 2020, but as president of the European Committee of the Regions.

In his speech, Mota Amaral mentioned that there is a current idea, which he rejects, "that there is the Region [Autonomous Region of the Azores] and the State must also intervene here".

"We have a President of the Republic, we have representatives in the Assembly of the Republic and we vote for the European Parliament, but when it comes to day-to-day life, we have to take our responsibilities here and we do not have to be dependent on decisions from Lisbon", he said.

Mota Amaral added that there are interests of the Azores "that do not always coincide with the general interests" of the mainland.

"And in no way can regional interests be systematically sacrificed to so-called national interests. It would then be the subordination of the interests of the Azoreans to the interests of the mainland. We do not accept that. We reject it. That was the past. That's how it used to be", he defended.

According to the former leader of the Azorean executive, the current situation of regional autonomy requires "a good dialogue between those responsible for regional power and local power".

"If we are in an autonomous region, then the dialogue must be conducted between the regional power and the local authorities. Local authorities do not have to go around doing 'favours' for the central government. I am horrified when I see this (...) and I do not like it. I think that, according to the Constitution, what is established is that the regional power has the functions of coordinating the local authorities. The central government has nothing to do with this", he stressed.

He also highlighted the dialogue that always exists between the Regional Government and the local authorities as being "the watermark" of autonomy.

In turn, Vasco Cordeiro, former president of the Regional Government, current leader of the PS/Azores and of the European Committee of the Regions, said that throughout all the Azorean Regional Governments, collaboration with local power "is a constant".

He recalled that he was leading the executive when the covid-19 pandemic emerged and assumed that "it would not have been possible to do what was done, from the point of view of economic support measures, social support measures, if on the part of the local authority, there was not, at the most varied levels, an availability at least to participate and, basically, in many cases, to help do what was done".

"The relationship with local power, along with what happens, for example, with the powers over the sea, is one of the great horizons to be explored in regional autonomy. (...) I think there is a need to rethink the way we organize ourselves", said Vasco Cordeiro.

In his opinion, Portugal "missed the autonomy train", recalling that the last two major reforms were made in 1998 (with the creation of the Finance Law for the Autonomous Regions) and in 2004 (with the Constitutional revision): "In the meantime, Spain and Italy have already completely changed the institutional architecture of the regions they have".

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