Last fall I had the privilege of visiting Portugal for an extended period of time, culminating in twenty of my colleagues and students from our MBA program in San Diego joining us for studies in Portugal and France. Not only did we visit our old favorites of Sintra, Monsaraz, and Lisbon, new wonders were discovered in Azenhas do Mar, Colares and Tomar. The wonderful country of Portugal continues to amaze me.
But besides the pleasures of touring Europe in fall with family, friends and colleagues, it was also an opportunity for many meetings with Portuguese, German and French business leaders, economists, church leaders and pastors and most importantly the ordinary people of Portugal provided me with information and commentary that is simply unavailable in North America. Stated simply, the future of Europe is at much more risk than I would have supposed.
Crazy talk, right? Rather than attempt to provide you with some great economic and business details and projections, I thought I would share some snippets of conversations which I have recorded below. These may give you some idea of what is happening in Europe. Consider:
“People here have long concluded that a single Euro for the Euro Zone cannot continue.” – Portuguese man, 11/7/11
“Yes, we have fine roads and bridges, but there are no businesses and commerce to support them. We are like a child given a pair of oversized basketball shoes to grow into but we have no ball to play with. ” – Lisbon CEO comment to me over lunch, 11/29/11
“The EU provided us much but the price we paid was abandoning our industries such as fishing, clothing and cork. Now what do we do?” – Said to me by a Portuguese man, 11/25/11.
The implications are fairly sobering for the smaller and less prominent countries of Europe such as Portugal and Ireland. At present they simply lack the economic dynamism of critical mass that is often needed to compete in the 21st century, and when they attempt to venture into the world of high finance and global business, the results can be disastrous. The data is clear that Portugal is in for an extended period of economic stagnation if not actual decline. As the gross domestic product of Portugal is roughly the same as the California city of San Diego, one can imagine how challenging it can be for Portugal to act decisively on the global economic stage. In the current system, they are, at best, a supporting actor.
What to do? The answers are neither simple nor painless, but one can imagine a future where Portugal is prosperous once again. A country with an incredible beauty and climate, significant natural resources, and an emotionally and politically stable national personality, Portugal has experienced both eras of great wealth and as well as long droughts of decline and challenges. This is nothing particularly new to the minds of most Portuguese.
But from a North American geo-political and economic perspective, I believe that there is significant opportunity—actually, even game changing opportunity—for this small country that straddles Europe and Africa. Just as Turkey is the bridge between Europe and the vast continent of Asia, Portugal is similarly situated as a unique bridge between North and South. It is a shorter route from Portugal to Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and other countries than often traveling to various points within the state of California.
Many entrepreneurs, business leaders and forecasters I listen to point towards the coming ascendency of Africa, and with skilled leadership and good fortune, the long history of communication and cooperation with North Africa can provide a point of extraordinary opportunity for Portugal, one less reliant on the political, financial and economic powers of Northern Europe. There is additional opportunity to bridge the vast differences in these regions between the great world religions, cultures and languages, and Portugal can do this as well as any country.
Portugal may be down, but this country should not be counted out just yet. Better days are ahead.
When we look to North Africa, of course lot's of people think that, because all those countries speak french, the big connection is indeed France. I would like to say that I believe these countries feel much more connected with Spain and Portugal in some of their deep roots and ancient history. The arabs from North Africa are berbers, and they are quite diferent than other arabs that come from the Middle East and they stayed in Portugal around 400 years, so it's natural that a lot of our DNA come all way from those days. It's more natural for a portuguese to get to Marocco and don't see a lot of differences in their food than a french. One very interesting fact is this, before the "carnagie revolution" of the 25th. of April 1974 Portugal dictatorial regime, because of the war in the african provinces (Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau) was totally isolated and renegated by all the african countries. When the "coup d'etat" changed Portugal to democracy the first african country to accept the new regime was infact Marocco...the same people that in 1578 totally smashed the portuguese army and the King Sebastião, leading to the loss of Portugal's independence, was the same to give the first "thumbs up" to the brand new democracy!!! Just to end this big influence of the north african people in the portuguese people, regarding the blood group, my type is AB+, who is quite rare in Portuga,l but we can find it in the arab world.
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