A Look at 2023 (with Pedro Rebelo de Sousa)

Pedro Rebelo de Sousa, founding Partner of SRS Legal:
 
PROXIMITY
 
"The key idea for 2023 is to look for proximity solutions to face the acceleration we have recently known in several domains and find solutions for it. In 2022, we witnessed the fall of established paradigms and premises, such as geopolitical and geo-economic imbalances, the war spiral, and democratic dissolution through demoliberalism and digital alienation. I fear that this decline will accelerate at a pace similar to a certain period in the 20th century, between the late 1920s and the late 1930s. I believe that this acceleration must be countered with innovative and interpellative anticipation, which must assume the risk of permanent disquiet and the deconstruction of models that have allowed for accommodation without restlessness. Simultaneously, we must prepare for accelerations and disruptions in topics such as demographics, energy, climate change, wealth distribution, and public health without losing focus on what is really relevant, people.
A national plan - such as the RRP - can be an important structural and functional accelerator to address these challenges, allowing us to join forces and work cohesively to find effective, sustainable, measurable/tangible, and lasting solutions.
In short, to face acceleration in all domains in 2023, we need to be innovative, interpellative, willing to risk temporary discomfort to deconstruct outdated models and find lasting solutions always having as assumption the proximity that between economies, peoples and nations has to emphasize.
This requires hard work, collaboration, and compromises between opposing factions, but it can be the key to leading us to a more prosperous and sustainable future."