Politician and manager, former Prime Minister and President of the European Commission and current President of GAVI, José Manuel Durão Barroso was one of the invited speakers for the event State of the Nation 2022about Education, employment and skills in Portugalof the Farfetch Foundation, held this Tuesday, and spoke to DN. He left warnings about what is going to happen in Portugal and in the world.
Starting from the outside: “Putin is an autocrat who wants to keep in power. He has an ultra-nationalist sense of frustration because Russia has lost the power it had.”
Further, “Russia has been an economic disaster. Putin uses the weapons he has and denies Ukraine as an independent country”, it says. “I met and talked to Putin and at the time he told me that Ukraine was an artificial creation of the European Union,” he says.
Clearly, for Barroso, “Putin has political, intellectual and emotional difficulties in recognizing Ukraine’s independence.”
War is a major factor of instability. When asked how this could all end, the Former President of the European Commission admits: “It is my concern and I see no solution”. He believes even with a ceasefire “the tension would continue” and that “Finland’s accession to NATO will create even greater tensions”.
“It will take a long time” conflict
According to José Manuel Barroso, “we must be prepared for a long conflict”. And as for the risk of the conflict spreading to China, he understands that this country is “not happy at all with this situation”.
“I know China and… [o seu presidente] Xi-Jinping, and the Chinese like to control the weather, they don’t like surprises.” From now on “there will be a greater dependence on China-Russia, but China is not satisfied with this situation.”
Barroso recalls that “there was already tension with the United States and that worries the Chinese”, in the sense of an eventual “separation of the Western world from China and Russia. Today we live in a moment that resembles the Cold War.” . things to break the world. We need a natural order”.
Interest “turbulent waters”
Inflation “is a structural problem and not a cyclical problem,” says Barroso. “Inflation was already under pressure before the invasion, also in energy” [da Ucrânia]† Deep down, the pandemic accelerated trends that already existed.”
The official is concerned about how Portuguese households and businesses will face this problem, as well as the rise in interest rates. I wouldn’t say we are experiencing a “deglobalization or reversal”, but a new type of globalization with more friction and uncertainty. “We are in a serious situation: the energy situation has gotten out of hand and the climate transition will come with a lot of costs. All this has effects that could lead to a recession, it is a possible scenario,” he admits.
Starting this year, “we need to know how to navigate in waters that are much more turbulent than before,” he says.
Education is one of their concerns. “Uncertainty brings the need to train with skills and adaptation for life. It is necessary to strengthen skills, especially in digitization and the European Commission is focusing on that and well. Mathematics and science are areas in which it is necessary to invest , but I’m from the humanities and I believe there is a need to invest in these areas as well so that we know how to analyze and critique the world,” he says.
“Envy and Smallness”
The leader says that “when the Portuguese are abroad, they are good, the problem lies in the quality of government policies that create inequality. The rulers are sometimes not interested in development. The so-called elites have to leave privileges and companies”.
And he shoots: “In Portugal, there are cultural obstacles to development, such as jealousy and smallness.”
The country has a “serious problem when it sees countries that have fallen behind advance in GDP” per person† And this is explained by errors in government policy. It is a reason for politicians to see what can be done so that Portugal does not let itself be left behind.”
The news about the state of health also raises the alarm. Today, “I don’t see decentralization in Health, because there is no real decentralization,” he says.
For the former prime minister, there is even “an unacceptable centralism in Lisbon”. The solution? “The government and parliament, including the president of the republic, are reaching a national consensus to achieve real decentralization.”
“Premature” 4-day week
At the employment level, on the four-day week: “I think it is premature to talk about it in our country. The important thing is not the quantity, but the quality of work in a country with productivity problems. If we shorten the working time even more, we will have a bigger productivity problem.”
Rather, he defends “flexibility, which was accelerated with the pandemic. Presenting a picture of less work does not seem to me to be an adequate sign,” he concludes.
In the State of the Nation X-ray, Durão Barroso puts his finger on more other wounds. “Portugal has two other problems: it has slow justice and slow justice is ultimately no justice; and it has a tax system that doesn’t attract talent nor allow us to make the leap to a bigger dimension. have moved their headquarters to other countries”.
Source: El heraldo
Jason Jack is an experienced technology journalist and author at The Nation View. With a background in computer science and engineering, he has a deep understanding of the latest technology trends and developments. He writes about a wide range of technology topics, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, software development, and cybersecurity.
