Adesão à Europa e Política Europeia

Democratic Transition in Portugal and the Enlargement of the European Union, por Mário Soares

This paper gives account of the processes of democratic transition and posterior adhesion to the (then called) CEE of the Southern European countries of Portugal, Spain and Greece, that, despite their differences, have some crucial communal aspects for the experience faced (at the time) by several central and eastern European countries. Of all these processes for transition to democracy, the Portuguese process is pointed as the most illustrative and the one from which most positive inferences can be drawn for the European crisis derived from the enlargement process. It is the belief of the author that, in this globalised world, the only way to solve the problem of Europe today requires creating an increasingly wider-reaching unit, that promotes the ideals of cooperation, solidarity and democracy that breaches the idea of “our Europe” versus “their Europe”.