António Beça Pereira was sworn in last Friday during a ceremony in which Minister Rodrigues stressed that the challenges currently facing SEF are “of the greatest importance and require iron-clad attention and a spirit of unwavering mission, building bridges with vision and future.”
The Minister said that this new phase for SEF would not imply “a change in direction of mission nor of the functioning of the services that favour citizens, nor an alteration to the close connection between management, the services, the tutelage, or a delay in the prosecution of the objectives set.”
SEF will continue to invest in a service that is close to foreign communities, she added, and one that is knowledgeable of the global panorama, namely with regards to new migratory flows and the underlying reasons behind the requests for international protection that have been received by the Portuguese state, permitting an adequate response to international situations of serious violations of human rights.
Anabela Rodrigues also acknowledged all those who work within SEF, stressing that “excellence, knowledge and determination” is expected of all heads of the civil servants.