The Vice-President of the Government admitted today at the Azorean Parliament that unemployment in the Azores will continue to rise in 2011, but he was confident that this trend will be reversed next year.

"We are aware that unemployment will continue to grow in the Azores during the year 2011," Sérgio Avila said, adding that the Government is confident and believes to have the "capacity to start reducing the unemployment rate as early as 2012" in the archipelago.

Sérgio Ávila also promised that the Regional Government will do everything within its autonomic powers and regional resources to minimise the effects of the measures taken at national level on the economy and household income.

This is a major challenge that should call us together, said the Vice-President of the Government, adding that the Plan and Budget for next year is already being worked towards this goal as well.

The government official also noted that the circumstances of this idea units PPM, CDS/PP, BE, PCP, PS and the Government of the Azores, saying he hopes that "those who have not understood the urgency and emergency of this attitude will do so one day for the benefit of the Azores."

Sérgio Ávila also considered that is not good for the Azores - because this is not true - to say that the Azores have not used properly the available resources, as the leader of PSD/A recently stated.

"Saying this is to create the conditions to withdraw resources from the Region," the Vice-President of the Government stated, defending that "it is time for us to defend, regardless of our different views on the strategic options, the vitality, values and the reasons for the existence of the autonomy."

Contrary to what the leader of the PSD/A recently stated, it is not true that the Azores have grown less than Europe, assured Sérgio Ávila. "Only in the last three years (2007-2009), the Azores grew more six percentage points than the average of the European Union."

Furthermore, the Vice-President of the Government guaranteed that the Azores grew more 15 percentage points than all 27 EU countries and more 16 percentage points than the national average in the last 15 years.

As he mentioned, this evolution "is a fundamental value of our autonomy" and a major reason for continuing to defend the allocation of resources to the Azores, not only because it is fair but also because we apply these resources effectively."