Expressing his views to journalists at the parliament, Rui Tavares voiced his outrage over the remarks made by Passos Coelho, accusing him of “immense audacity” for lamenting that Portuguese citizens might feel foreign in their own country.
“If there is one Portuguese who should not speak about citizens feeling like foreigners, it is precisely Pedro Passos Coelho, as no one in our democratic history has made so many Portuguese feel like foreigners,” he asserted.
The Livre leader challenged the former PSD chief to reveal his true intentions, implying that if Passos Coelho seeks a return to power as head of the executive or state, it is clear he “does not believe in Portugal” by suggesting that its citizens could feel like foreigners in their homeland.
“He is concealing his true intentions, belittling a country that has always integrated, essentially not believing in our ability to remain Portugal for over 900 years, regardless of historical changes,” Tavares added.
Rui Tavares accused Passos of employing “duplicity, ambiguity, hypocrisy” in his discourse, attempting to obscure his legacy of causing hundreds of thousands of Portuguese to feel foreign abroad.
The Livre leader further stated that “only people who neither know nor believe in Portugal” would agree with Passos Coelho’s stance, suggesting that the former prime minister aims to “lay the red carpet for André Ventura, hoping one day Ventura might do the same for him.”
“Perhaps it would be prudent for them to finally reveal what kind of strategy they have been conspiring about all this time,” he argued.
On Thursday, former Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho warned that if the immigration situation remains unchanged, Portuguese citizens will feel like foreigners “in their own land” and blamed the PS for eight years of inaction on the matter.
During the presentation of the book “Introduction to Liberalism” by Miguel Morgado in Lisbon, Passos Coelho referenced the latest data from AIMA showing that the number of foreign residents in Portugal quadrupled within seven years, reaching about 1.5 million by the end of 2024, emphasizing that “a significant number of people have entered Portugal in a very short time.”
