The promises are illusions and the future is that

We had doubts, this blackout of April 28, 2025, came to demonstrate our weaknesses and external dependence. Most of the population, did not even imagine that 65% of the electricity we consume is imported and only 32.5% is produced in Portugal having as its origin the renewable and central energy in natural gas. What happened was an unprecedented situation, but it can also happen in natural gas in which Portugal is 60.2% of Nigeria, 29.1% of the United States and 13.2% of Trinidad and Tobago. Regarding gross oil, Portugal is dependent on 100%, and Brazil is the largest supplier with 43.2%, Algeria 14.6%, Nigeria 13.1%and the rest comes from several African countries.

This is the reality that cannot be hidden, Portugal does not have these energy materials to be self -sufficient, as we are also dependent on water, which originates in Spain, the mountains of the Iberian Peninsula and that reaches Portugal through rivers.

Already there is the time that Portugal had a rich underground and coveted by the largest powers worldwide, from it were extracted several ores, including copper, zinc, lithium, volphamium, gold, iron, tin, lead, sulfur and uranium. It is good to remember that Marie Curie received two Nobel Prizes in 1903 the Nobel Prize for Physics, for her work on Uranium radioactivity and in 1911 the Nobel Prize for the discovery of radio and pool. It was in 1907 that Madame Marie Curie ‘discovered’ uranium uranium in the Rosunanese mines, next to the city of Guarda, being the most expensive mineral substance in the world, and it was worth the Nobel Prize for the 1911 Chemistry. But few will know the role of Portugal in the research of Madame Marie Curie.

The Portugal trade balance has been negative for many years, we have imported more than we export, even though it is a slice of wines, medicines, flowers, vegetables, fruits and cork. Internally TAP, CP, Metro and other companies are deficient and supported by the State Budget.

This is the reality, as we can say that Portugal is on the well -path of development, when 72% of the territory is desertified and without subsistence means and the little foreign industrial investment to be moved.

What came to demonstrate the blackout of April 28 is that our greatest protection are not tanks, combat planes or weapons are the international instances where we are inserted. Spain our only ground gateway, the European Union, made up of 27 countries among which Portugal, the United Nations, consisting of 193 Member States including Portugal. The born that guarantees the freedom and security of its members through political and military means, and all signed the International Treaty on Human Rights.

Portugal, by being diplomatically part of all these institutions, our security is assured, the biggest problem is internal. After 51 years of democracy, the leaders of the two biggest PS and PSD parties, with wrong personal strategies, are leaving the country ingratumable. It is good to remember that in 2015, then Prime Minister Passos Coelho, with a huge sense of state, having gained the elections, but not reached a parliamentary majority, immediately invited the leader of the second largest party to a government coalition to occupy the position of vice-minister vice-minister. António Costa did not accept and formed him government, but his personal strategy, breaking the value of the word, only benefited, but not the country that became even more fragile.

I don’t know the results of the May 18 elections, but I know that if these two leaders do not understand each other in a regime agreement or a coalition, the country continues to drift and democracy, it is in danger.

University Professor of Management and Economics