Portugal’s outgoing head of state, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, criticised the U.S. (with Israel) attack on Iran – something the country’s government has stopped short of doing.
At a ceremony in Belém (presidential) palace (to commemorate the taking of office of the new Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces) earlier this week, the man who has vowed to stop making any kind of political commentary the moment his two-term mandate comes to a close did not hold back. There were still seven days to go at that point. Marcelo was using them.
“Diplomacy, for now, has lost its voice – and with her, multilateralism, international organisations and the principles and rules of international law,” he said. “They are invoked, when they are used, to justify a posteriori events that have already taken place.”
In his assessment of the joint U.S./ Israeli military operation launched last Saturday, Marcelo (very much like Giorgia Meloni) referred to the moment that tipped the world into “a new world, in which war threatens to defeat diplomacy” – Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine.
Now, in 2026 “the world is even more different (…) more dangerous, more unstable, more casuistic – living off interest and its transaction, and with management at the pace of a click of immediate emotion.
“Even when what is done appears strategic and mindful of the day to come, denial quickly arrives at a dizzying pace. Take one step, and then see what happens.”
Expresso runs with this story in its paper today, explaining that no journalists were actually ‘in the room’ when Marcelo opined on the sorry pass to which the world has come.
His comments preceded his comments, in the company of the prime minister yesterday, on how everything he had hoped for when he began his presidency 10 years ago has shifted dramatically.
“There is no comparison with the speed with which crises arrive today, and the problems that they bring”, he admitted. One hopes for price stability, “instead comes the risk that prices will rise (…) One hopes for the approximation of peace, but it is war that happens. One hopes for efforts at international dialogue, but it is tension that appears.”
The tragedy is that a man who took office with so much enthusiasm 10 years ago has accepted that he is leaving the country he loves to face a much more uncertain world. Indeed, Expresso calls it “a worse world”.
Source: Expresso
