Eanes and Soares would say the same, as presidents, as Marcelo today

For the worst possible reasons, the most controversial point of the President's excellent speech at the PSD Summer University couldn't have been more perfectly timed. Just hours after Marcelo's words, Putin was massacring Kyiv and putting Europe on the spot like never before, bombing European Union facilities in the Ukrainian capital. About ten days before this new escalation, Donald Trump had accorded Putin the honor of a true czar in Alaska, showing himself to be completely subdued and even admiring of the invader of Ukraine.

None of this was new. Only fools would be surprised, but for the future, it was heavily touted by the US President, without any agreement, but with the "constructive" and so-called "productive meeting" in a statement between the parties. It was obvious.

Let's now look at Marcelo's statements and logic that have generated so much bitterness and internal attacks. Yes, especially behind closed doors, since what was said is widely appreciated globally. "The supreme leader of the world's superpower has functioned as a Soviet—sorry, Russian—asset. He's a Russian asset. The new American leadership has strategically favored the Russian Federation."

First, it's important to note that there's absolutely nothing radical in these statements or in the President's logic itself. Unless by "moderates" we mean that politicians in this space, in the current new and extremely demanding context, in which the entire liberal democratic model is undergoing attempts to dismantle it in the US and other countries, must be a kind of soft-spoken puppets who say nothing of interest or substance, and who appear absent from the most decisive political battle in the West in the last 40 years. Unfortunately, whether camouflaged or not, we have too many of these "moderates" here too, and some are running for President.

Second, the facts. Putin never said he wanted an end to the war, much less took any steps toward recognizing Ukraine's sovereignty. Trump lied about this from the beginning, and only the inattentive would have missed it before. Pressure on Putin's Russia from the Trump administration, whether military or economic, is non-existent and should have sounded the alarm long ago among the remaining truly "moderate" European leaders. This reality, the absence of American sanctions and others, has led Putin to truly believe he will win the war exactly the way he wants and with the Ukrainian territory he wants. Finally, and as if that weren't enough, Trump's financial ties to Russian banks are well known, dating back decades, and influence what was considered Russian interference in his first election.

Chronology, cause and effect, facts, and a complete set of events confirm what Marcelo mentioned. Far from any conspiracy theory.

Realpolitik : should a President of a NATO founding country say that?

I always knew at the time that Trump's eventual election would be by far and without parallel the worst thing for European and Ukrainian interests. Ideologies, moderates, and radicals aside, this realization caused great irritation among the latter and even those camouflaged in a nearby television studio.

It is also true that we live in an era in which, as the defense of Ukraine demonstrated, all realpolitik in the old ways, and in a global system that has changed dramatically in just a few years, will mean the complete death of liberal democracies.

Marcelo knows this.

And how naive are those who believe otherwise, that Atlantic alliances remain stagnant in the era of Trumpism, that the world is small, and that Marcelo's statements don't, in and of themselves, garner other interests and support that matter. This also applies to the US. Consider also the timing of these statements by the President of the Republic, which coincides with the most recent decision by a US federal court declaring illegal the tariffs imposed globally by Trump.

The reality is that we have become unaccustomed to true democratic courage, logic, and cunning in politics among moderates, but the times have never called for it so much.

Eanes and Soares were people who not only possessed it, but always knew how to respond to it, interpreting and changing Portuguese political times in decisive historical contexts. Mário Soares was this his entire life.

As presidents of the Republic, they would have said the same thing as Marcelo today.

The texts in this section reflect the authors' personal opinions. They do not represent VISÃO nor reflect its editorial position.