About a month before the elections for the Presidency of the Republic, the current occupant of the position admitted the country’s failure in what was one of his main goals since taking office, on March 9, 2016: reducing poverty in Portugal. Since that moment, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has pointed out this reduction as one of the objectives of his Presidency, but now that we are just over a month away from the elections to choose the future president – January 18, 2026 – he took advantage of his visit, last weekend, to the Food Bank Against Hunger to say that he feels “frustrated” by the situation in Portugal.
And the known data should, in fact, cause concern: there are 2.1 million people in the country at risk of poverty. 900 thousand, despite being employed, are in a situation of absolute poverty, as revealed in the report Portugal, Social Balance 2024.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa is therefore right to say: “And if there is sadness in my heart, it is because poverty has not reduced what it should have reduced.” A sadness that does not lessen with the donations that the Portuguese made last weekend in the Food Bank Against Hunger campaign, which collected 2,150 tons of food – a decrease of 2.8% compared to 2024 -, which will be delivered to 2,500 institutions across the country and, through them, to more than 380,000 people, according to the president of the institution, Isabel Jonet.
If the coldness of the numbers is already shocking, when a deeper analysis is carried out, as the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation At the beginning of the year, the concern should be even greater: there are more and more elderly people in need of support, as the social benefits they receive are not enough to meet their needs.
And here we remember another statement by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa who, it should be noted, is not responsible for the country’s policies: “Portuguese society and European societies are aging very quickly and aging means impoverishment, and it also means difficulty.”
Given these renewed warnings from the President, what can be done? Perhaps put into practice, or at least publicize, the implementation of the announced strategies, such as approved in September 2021 and which would involve 270 measures with the objective of reducing poverty by 10% by 2030.
This is not just a national issue. Proof of this is that the European Parliament yesterday discussed a report by PCP MEP João Oliveira, which aims to develop a European anti-poverty strategy.
Therefore, paper strategies exist – both in Portugal and in the European Parliament -, now we just need to have the results.
Executive editor of Diário de Notícias