Cavaco Silva Walks Onto Renascença on Wednesday Evening 13 May Defending a European Defence Identity Separate From the NATO Umbrella — Former President Calls Trump 'Super Errático' and Says Europe Should 'Não Deve Acobardar-se' Before the White House

Former President of the Republic Aníbal Cavaco Silva used a long-form interview broadcast by Renascença on Wednesday evening 13 May 2026 — and amplified across the Portuguese press on Thursday morning 14 May — to argue for the construction of an autonomous European defence identity separate from NATO, on the grounds that the second Trump administration in Washington has rendered the United States 'um Presidente que não é confiável para a Europa.' The intervention is the most pointed external-policy statement Cavaco Silva has issued since the close of his presidency in 2016 and lands as the Conselho Europeu, under António Costa, advances the SAFE €150 billion defence-procurement instrument and the parallel ReArm Europe envelope.

The defence-identity argument

Cavaco Silva framed the case as a strategic-autonomy gap rather than an alliance breach. His formulation: 'A Europa deve investir mais em Defesa, ter uma força, uma identidade europeia de defesa separada mesmo da NATO, mas em cooperação com a NATO, para poder intervir em situações em que os Estados Unidos não tenham interesse.' The phrasing is significant — 'separada mesmo' goes further than the standard EU pillar-of-NATO formulation that has dominated Brussels and Lisbon thinking since the 1998 Saint-Malo Declaration. The Cavaco Silva position aligns more closely with the Macron line in Paris and the post-rearmament Merz line in Berlin than with the Atlanticist consensus that has held in Lisbon under successive Foreign Ministers.

The Trump assessment

The former president called the US administration 'super errático' and said Trump 'considera que as relações comerciais não são em benefício de quem intervém na transação, mas só em benefício dos próprios Estados Unidos.' His operative conclusion: 'Temos nos Estados Unidos um Presidente não confiável para a Europa, mas a Europa não se deve acobardar perante as exigências do Presidente Trump.' The line lands two weeks after the Pentagon confirmed the withdrawal of 5,000 US troops from Germany — a repositioning that has reframed the European-pillar debate inside NATO since early May — and in the same week that Defence Minister Nuno Melo represented Portugal at the Brussels foreign-affairs council on European defence cooperation.

The von der Leyen-Costa contrast

Cavaco Silva volunteered an unusually direct judgement on the EU institutions. He praised European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for 'um excelente trabalho em tempos muito difíceis,' citing her 'grande força e determinação' against forces inside the Council that have tried to constrain European support to Ukraine. He then drew an explicit comparative: he trusts 'muito mais' the von der Leyen Commission than the European Council under António Costa — the former Portuguese prime minister who took the Council presidency in December 2024. His reasoning was structural rather than personal: in the Council, he said, 'os interesses particulares dos Estados-membros frequentemente dominam,' whereas the Commission tends to operationalise the community interest.

The Lisbon read

The intervention is not a throwaway from a former office-holder. Cavaco Silva remains the senior living former president of the Republic and the longest-serving prime minister of the post-1976 era. His position carries weight inside the PSD and inside the diplomatic corps — and it gives the Montenegro government cover to push the European-pillar line at the upcoming June Council without breaking with the Atlanticist tradition. He paired the defence pitch with three companion recommendations: a genuine European capital-markets union to fund the rearmament, expanded EU trade agreements with India, Japan, Mexico and Australia, and a strategic deepening of the Lusofonia diplomatic axis. The Renascença interview airs in full this week.

Sources: Renascença interview, 13–14 May 2026; Público; Observador; RTP; Lusa.