The President of the Government highlighted the personal and political qualities of José Medeiros Ferreira, "an important Azorean who never forgot the Azores," defending that a personality like his is "needed in Portugal."

"José Medeiros Ferreira is needed in a country that desperately yearns for someone who can see farther, who can think freely and is able to use the wit, culture and intelligence to give true meaning to politics," said Vasco Cordeiro. The President of the Government spoke at the opening of the Conference "José Medeiros Ferreira - The citizen, the Politician, the Historian," which is taking place today and Friday at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon.

"In these challenging times, we all have an obligation to look at the political action, the academic path and the legacy of citizenship and freedom that José Medeiros Ferreira left us not as a memory, but as an inspiration and a call for action."

In his speech, Vasco Cordeiro stressed the importance attached by Medeiros Ferreira to his "island roots," noting that "his pride of being Azorean has projected the Azores in various areas of his intervention."

"Medeiros Ferreira was not an Azorean who left the Azores to follow a new path in Mainland Portugal. He was, rather, an Azorean in Mainland Portugal, who stood out in his political and academic career, but who always paid special attention to the Azores. To his Azores," the President of the Government said, adding that this attention was the result of "a commitment to the economic, social, political and citizenship development of the Azores.”

Vasco Cordeiro also stressed that "Medeiros Ferreira never forgot the Azores as a political project, based on the Constitutional Autonomy, in which he strongly believed. He was among the personalities that played an active role in its latest developments."

In this context, the President of the Government stressed that "his belief and political action - assertive, responsible and pedagogical - has greatly contributed to the strengthening of Regional Autonomy, which also distinguished Portugal."

"The Azores and Portugal owe to the contribution of José Medeiros Ferreira the path, often arduous and misunderstood,  to reach a national consensus on the Regional Autonomy as a political project that promotes the development and progress of a People, while rejecting the fruitless quarrel and the artificial division of the country," defended the President of the Government.

Vasco Cordeiro recalled José Medeiros as a "brilliant academic, a political visionary, a keen and outspoken observer and an irreverent, ironic and determined commentator with a unique sense of humour," highlighting the "richness of his personality" and the influence he had in building the Portugal of today.

"The path followed José Medeiros Ferreira as a citizen, academic and politician is intertwined with the history of the modern Portugal he helped building, either by direct action or influence, from his participation in the student protests in the 1960s to the key responsibility he assumed at the beginning of the democratic process and the adherence of Portugal to values underpinning the European common project. His path was also marked by numerous political battles he fought on behalf of the Azores and Portugal at the National Assembly and the European Parliament, in his academic and university life or in public and virtual communication spaces," said the President of the Government.