“Political and social functioning now at risk every day”
Prime Minister Luís Montenegro is back in action after his health wobble last Friday, warning of “invisible” attacks on national sovereignty that happen every day.
Speaking in Vila Nova de Gaia, at the opening of Land Defence Industry Day (an event centred on the country’s emerging ‘defence cluster’), the PM said that the “structure of political and social functioning is now at risk every day with attacks that cannot be seen, with attacks that surround and invade our space and our sovereignty”.
The attacks happen “in the most elaborate, sophisticated ways imaginable”, since war today is not just something that can be “extracted from the most visible military equipment”.
“War today is a technological war, a digital war, a war of manipulation, a war that many call hybrid, a war that attacks the foundations of democratic regimes, that attacks the very functioning of democracies.”
Considering that “little is said about this in Portugal”, the Prime Minister recalled, in a reference to Romania, that “there is a country in the European Union whose presidential elections were annulled on the basis of the distortion of the popular will, precisely through the manipulation of public opinion”.
“Sometimes it seems like we are theorising about a reality that doesn’t exist, but it actually does exist”, he stressed, suggesting “it is good that Portuguese men and women can also understand” this reality.
The Prime Minister stressed that “the life of each one of us” is at stake.
“We are talking about the foundations of our most basic freedoms. We are talking about guaranteeing security, individually considered and collectively considered as well. We are not just talking about war, we are not just talking about deterrence, we are not just talking about our responsibilities in the international context.”
All of which is (or certainly seems) diametrically opposed to the impression given by the country’s Finance Minister in today’s Financial Times that Portugal is more concerned with maintaining a budgetary balance than reinforcing its defence capabilities. ND
Source material: LUSA
