Lisbon, May 28, 2026 (Lusa) - Portugal’s president, Antonio Jose Seguro, has said that the country needs mindset changes to promote trust, method and planning, and end a “culture of disorganisation”, with too much improvisation, and the “blame game” in politics.
“We need to change something in ourselves, in our way of doing things, to change our country,” the president said during an event celebrating the 10th anniversary of Eco, a Portuguese business newspaper, at the Belém Cultural Centre, in Lisbon on Wednesday evening.
“Trust, focus on the solution, organise. Three changes,” he summarised.
The president expressed concern over the media situation in Portugal during his speech, noting the development of social media and artificial intelligence (AI), saying, “the country has to decide what it wants to do to have free and plural journalism.” President Seguro later spoke about political culture in the country and targeted the constant search for culprits, saying that “the media also have a responsibility here that they cannot avoid.” “Not because they are at fault – they are not, I want to say that very clearly – but because the coverage model that privileges conflict over content, the exchange of accusations over analysis, amplifies exactly the dynamic of what paralyses us,” he said.
The president said the first change the country needs is towards “building a culture of trust.”
He noted this factor is missing in society in Portugal compared to other countries, and is essential for partnerships to help the country’s economy gain scale and competitiveness.
“A law cannot build this. It requires examples, leaders who deliver what they promise, and institutions that function consistently and therefore deserve the trust they ask for. It is slow, it is difficult, but it is the first change we need,” he said.
He appealed for a “second change”, namely the end of the “political culture” of constantly searching for culprits, which delays solving problems.
“This blame game is a monumental waste of energy, time and resources,” he said.
The president commented on the role of journalism in this context, saying it “can be part of the problem”, or “can be, as Eco so often is, part of the solution”, calling it a choice “made every day by those who have to make it.” “The third change is more transversal; it is a culture of organisation. Portugal has an extraordinary capacity for improvisation, genuine and admirable, a huge, deep expression of solidarity that comes from the heart, which has saved us in very difficult moments. But improvisation has a precise limit: it only reduces chaos and mitigates loss,” he continued.
He believes a “culture of disorganisation and disjointedness” prevails in Portugal “that no improvisation compensates for, and this has a cost”, namely “projects that do not happen, investments that do not arrive, talents that leave because they do not find here the predictability of what they need to build”.
“Method, planning and institutions that function consistently, regardless of who leads them, build futures,” he said.
President Seguro commented that making these “three changes” is not easy, but it is possible.
The country we want will not just happen to us; we must make it happen. With the best of each of us, with the best of all of us,” he appealed.
He noted that the media, “a pillar of democracies”, “is under pressure like never before” in his lifetime, facing social media and their algorithms “which do not distinguish truth from lies” and “systematically privilege emotion”, and AI capable of “simulating voices, manufacturing images.”
The president added: “The answer cannot be to lower the standard, it must be to raise the ambition”, and “the journalism that survives this transformation will have to be more human, and not less human.”
“Slower, when speed distorts. More contextualised, when fragmentation disorients. More capable of giving meaning to what happens and not just reporting what happened,” he concluded.
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