We spend hours listening to commentators, many of them with clear political agendas, repeating that nothing works, that the country is bad, that it is good abroad. And in the midst of this constant noise, there is structural, transformative news that goes practically unnoticed. The investment in Sines is one of these news.

While the accessory is being debated, something is happening that could redefine Portugal's position in the European economy. An investment of hundreds of millions of euros, with tens of thousands of state-of-the-art processors, linked directly to Microsoft, Nvidia and a global artificial intelligence ecosystem, is not just another project. It is a change of scale. It is Portugal entering a championship where it has never been.

And this does not happen by chance. It is not luck. It is the result of concrete factors: competitive energy, strategic location, connectivity and, above all, the ability to attract large foreign investment. When global companies choose Portugal to install critical infrastructures of this size, they are validating the country. They are saying, with capital and not with words, that Portugal is reliable, competitive and relevant.

But there is a problem. We ourselves do not value that. We prefer to discuss what is wrong than to realise what can change everything. We prefer easy commentary to serious analysis. We prefer criticism to construction. And this has a cost. Because a society that lives focused on the negative becomes less ambitious, less productive and less prepared to seize opportunities.

The Sines project is not just about technology. It is about qualified employment, about attracting talent, about value creation and about strategic positioning. It is about putting Portugal at the centre of one of the biggest economic transformations in recent history: artificial intelligence. And when we talk about the potential impact on GDP, thousands of jobs and a significant multiplier effect on the economy, we realise that this is not a detail. It is structural.

But there is a condition for this to continue. And this condition is simple, although difficult to execute: the country has to keep up. It needs more labour flexibility, a more efficient public administration, and faster and more predictable licensing processes. It needs more universities linked to the market, more qualified talent and more capacity for execution. Because large investments do not live in isolation. They need an ecosystem.

And this is where collective responsibility comes in. If the attention of the citizens were a little more focused on these issues, perhaps it would be better understood why reforms are necessary. Why is rigidity expensive? Why inefficiency drives away investment. And why it is not enough to want growth, it is necessary to create conditions for it to happen.

The investment in Sines is just the beginning. More are coming. International capital is paying attention. The question is whether Portugal is prepared to follow this movement or whether it will continue to be stuck in the cycle of commentary, criticism and self-sabotage.

Basically, the country has a choice. Continue to discuss what does not work or start building what can work better. Because opportunities like this do not come up very often. And when they appear, they do not wait for those who are distracted.