The head of state was speaking at the Belém Palace, in Lisbon, in a speech in which he made comparisons between sport, the economy and politics, during a reception for the Portuguese wheelchair handball team, European and world champion.

“It's an illusion to think that you can be important without paying a price, that you can have power without having responsibility, that doesn't exist", declared Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.

"Fundamental disagreement"

The idea that power implies responsibility was central to the speech given by the President of the Republic on May 4, expressing his opposition to the maintenance of João Galamba as Minister of Infrastructure.

The media tried to ask him about the hearing of the Minister of Infrastructure, João Galamba, at the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into Political Guardianship of TAP Management, but Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa left the room without making any statements to journalists.

In the communication he made to the country on May 4, the President of the Republic summarized the incidents between João Galamba's office and his former deputy Frederico Pinheiro as "a moment in which the responsibility of the rulers was not assumed as it should have been with the dismissal of the Minister of Infrastructure".

The head of state assumed that he had a "fundamental disagreement" with the prime minister, António Costa, regarding the maintenance of João Galamba as minister - in relation to which he had already publicly expressed his opposition the day before, through a written note.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa argued that "where there is no responsibility, in politics as in administration, there is no authority, respect, trust, credibility" and that "a ruler knows that by accepting to be one, he accepts being responsible for what he does and does not do, and also for what those he chooses to do or not to do, and over whom he is supposed to rule".