How do you assess the recently concluded Portuguese Presidency of the EU?
This is a regular presidency, which caused great inconvenience because the pandemic broke out very badly in the first months of the year and interfered with work. But the agenda was to be marked not by any Portuguese strategy, but by an extremely difficult situation. And this was primarily due to vaccination, where things were not going well and there were no effective proposals in this area. The second point that didn’t go as expected is the proliferation and harmonization issue that comes with the digital certificate. The Portuguese presidency has always had to strive to standardize these rules, but this has not succeeded. In other words, it can be very useful, but as a result, each state will be able to choose different conditions. This should not happen, there should be levels from which the measurements would be equal. Mrs. Merkel said that the country that was president while the rest denied entry to the British, Portugal allowed them to enter. In other words, Portugal was solving problems on its own, without trying to connect with everyone else. The Schengen area is destroyed and needs to be rebuilt, and we know that the pandemic is connected with these ups and downs, you cannot restore it all, but the digital certificate had this function and it is not suitable for this. This even applies to the national level, because the president of the republic even suggested using a digital certificate at the national level to facilitate access to sports and cultural events, but for people who do not have a vaccine because they have not yet received it. , you have to pay for tests. And this is severe discrimination. The European Parliament introduced in its bill the requirement that tests be free, as in France, but the Council, chaired by Portugal, did not agree with this. It is true that the Commission has allocated 100 million euros to reduce costs, but this is a Portuguese family with a minimum or average salary, even if we talk about antigens, which can spend 20 or 30 euros each time they go for analysis. I’m not talking about PCR anymore, which is 90 or 100 euros.

Since the country is in the presidency, should it set an example of precautions to be taken when applying?
Exactly. It even makes me want to laugh. The Portuguese presidency, opposing the homophobic law of the Hungarian government, cannot do this because it must be neutral, but later, when it comes to freedom of movement, it may already have its own position that has nothing to do with other countries.

And there was no success in this presidency?
There was one thing that went well and that was a recovery and resilience plan. Although it did not depend on the Portuguese government, a huge effort was made to get the parliaments of the 27 states to approve the so-called own resources decision, which was necessary for it to take effect someday in the summer. And it was not an easy job, because there were several states – the case of Hungary and Poland due to the problem of the rule of law and the case of frugality. [Áustria, Dinamarca, Finlândia e Holanda] because they didn’t really like this mechanism, which has subsidies, not just loans – they didn’t want to give their consent and wanted to postpone. Portuguese diplomacy and the Portuguese presidency have worked well to force decisions on the PRR by May, so that the Commission will enter the markets, and this has already been done, and that the plans of each country have been approved, as they were, and which may come and distribute funds. It took a little sweat to get such a thing.

Wasn’t the social summit in Porto also a success?
It was a failure. I warned the Portuguese Chairmanship that this should not be done with regard to labor market conditions and the European minimum wage, because it is impossible to reach agreement on this. Norwegians will never accept this, although they have a much higher social status than ours. We have a strategy again from Lisbon to Guterres, this is a very beautiful role that will not lead to anything good. Guterres, as President of Portugal, wanted Europe to become the largest digital and economic power in 2010, ahead of the United States and China, which are far ahead. The social issue was not a bad idea, but there was an area where it was easy to reach consensus on concrete measures, however small, namely the health union issue. On this issue, states found it difficult to flee, because the pandemic affected the whole of Europe, and there was a favorable situation for making some concessions and some achievements. It could be a map of the future health union, the European health organization.

On the issue of covid-19 vaccination, has Portugal been able to play a role in this area?
This was not the case in Portugal. This was referred to the European Commission, but Portugal had no proposals for a vaccination campaign.