Autonomous Regions

Nº157 MAY 2026

Did you know that it is because of the Azores and Madeira that Portugal’s exclusive economic zone is the third largest in Europe? And did you know that despite these two archipelagos electing members of the Portuguese parliament since 1822, they are still forbidden from setting up political parties?

There was a time when clocks on the islands read the same as those in Lisbon due to the weight of monarchic, republican and Estado Novo centralism. But the islands were able to shape their own progress and pace, which led to the establishment of the autonomous political system in 1976 and its development into what it is today.

This essay analyses the operation of the political institutions in Madeira and the Azores and their relations with the central power, with Europe and with the Atlantic since the early 19th century. Along the way, it looks at the particular identities of democracies and the autonomous islands, constantly changing and with their own specific dynamics, uniting the past of resistance to the present of freedom and progress.