President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa arrived today around 4:30 PM at a hotel in central Berlin and, a few minutes later, took a stroll through the center of the German capital, accompanied by Portugal’s ambassador to Germany, Madalena Fischer.
During a conversation with the diplomat, the President recalled his first visit to Berlin in October 1974, six months after Portugal’s Carnation Revolution, when the city was still “an isolated island,” only accessible to West Berlin by air, given its location in the midst of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR).
“It was a very frenetic atmosphere back then—day and night, day and night—like being in a state of claustrophobia,” he emphasized, noting that at that time he engaged with several political and social leaders to explain “how the revolution was unfolding.”
“For me, it was a discovery, it was truly thrilling, and for them, it was an adventure, like having a revolution in Europe without the French passion, because they are much more rational,” he recalled.
Amid conversations with his delegation and statements to journalists, the President of the Republic reminisced about the various times he has visited Berlin, although noting that “none had the emotion of the first,” yet highlighting that the last visit was a state visit in 2019.
Shortly thereafter, with clouds threatening rain that would soon pour down torrentially, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa arrived at a bookstore, where he immediately picked up a book by German political scientist Carlo Masala titled “If Russia Wins: A Scenario.”
According to its synopsis, which the President read, the book envisions an incursion by Russian Armed Forces into the Estonian city of Narva and the island of Hiiuma in the Baltic Sea in March 2028, representing “the price Europe is paying for not rearming after the end of the war in Ukraine and lacking [military] capabilities.”
“We are used to everything turning out well in the end. But what if that doesn’t happen? And if Russia wins? It’s just a hypothetical future scenario described by political scientist Carlo Masala—but it illustrates, in a particularly dramatic way, what is at stake today,” the synopsis reads.
Asked why he decided to buy this book, Marcelo stressed that it is a “current topic” and a “scenario that is not usually discussed.”
“And it’s good that it’s not discussed—because I hope it doesn’t happen—but I wanted to see how the Germans view this scenario and what concerns them,” he noted.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa highlighted that the scenario seemed “implausible” to him, but emphasized that “there’s nothing like considering the implausible as well, to ensure it remains implausible.”
“Because it only remains implausible if everything is done to make it implausible. Otherwise, the likelihood that it is implausible begins to weaken,” he stated.
As he browsed the shelves, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa exchanged words with a young man who was surprised to encounter the President of Portugal in a Berlin bookstore and was leafing through books on varied subjects such as Pope Leo XVI or crime novels.
Nevertheless, it was the international topics that seemed to pique his interest the most: in addition to the book on Russia, he also purchased another on “the death of democracies” and another on German national politics, titled “The Last Chance,” featuring an image of current German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, the leader of the far-right AfD party, Alice Weidel, and the President of the United States, Donald Trump.
To journalists, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa declined to elaborate on his reasons for buying the book but emphasized the importance of Germany to the Portuguese economy, due to trade exchanges motivated, for instance, by the Autoeuropa factory.
“Today Germany is one of Portugal’s major partners, consistently ranking among the top four,” he said.
