Marcelo Rebelo de Souza: “It’s an illusion to think you can be important without paying a price”

President of the Republic Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa this Thursday echoed the message that power comes with responsibility and said “it’s an illusion to think you can be important without paying a price.”

The head of state delivered a speech at the Belém Palace in Lisbon in which he drew comparisons between sports, economics and politics, during a reception in honor of the Portuguese wheelchair handball team, European and world champions.

“It’s an illusion to think that you can be important without paying a price, that you can have power without being responsible, that doesn’t exist. They don’t do it in the same way to achieve what they have achieved,” said Marcelo Rebelo de Souza.

The idea that power implies responsibility was central to the speech of the President of the Republic on May 4, in which he expressed his opposition to the retention of Joao Galamba as Minister of Infrastructure.

Today, in front of the athletes and leaders of the handball team of the Portuguese Wheelchair Handball Federation, the President of the Republic considered that “the most difficult thing is to form a team, create the spirit of the body, act as a team”, and he spoke about the “ups and downs” that exist as in sports, as well as in economics and politics, in which “the cycles do not coincide.”

“It happens all over the country. In the economy, we have big numbers in terms of some fundamental issues for the life of the Portuguese, and then we have problems that are not so big in the daily life of the Portuguese, because things are not simultaneous,” he said, summing up the analysis of the economic situation in country, which he spent in the last days.

The President of the Republic added that “one cycle has to go up for another to go up, and sometimes when the other goes up, the first one starts going down.”

“Good numbers, big ones, they went up, they reach people, for some time they are with people, the cycles coincide. Then suddenly people still feel a positive cycle, but something outside or inside does not do so well with the general cycle, ”he demonstrated.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa also mentioned that those involved in sports, as well as economics, politics and society in general, are constantly subjected to comparisons and confrontations with others, elimination games, “knockouts”, victories and defeats.

“In sports, comparisons are made every day. If you like, in sports there are elections, I won’t say every day or every week, but with greater frequency than political elections, and therefore all games are knockout matches, almost all of them, even what they were not, they become, in the words Scolari, by knockouts. It’s one thing to win, another to lose. Accumulating victories is one thing, missing out is not the same,” he said.