In May 1989, the economist Victor Manuel Riberio Constâncio, former Portuguese Finance Minister and former Secretary-General of the Portuguese Socialist Party, delivers an address in Lisbon to members of the Associação Promotora do Ensino dos Cegos (Teaching Promotional Association for the Blind — APEC) in which he reviews the origins and consequences of the introduction of the European Single Act and the modified European Monetary System (EMS).