CPLP: Portugal welcomes return of Brazil, president at CPLP summit in Sao Tome

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

CPLP: Portugal welcomes return of Brazil, president at CPLP summit in Sao Tome

9:45 CAT | 25 Aug 2023

Lula da Silva at the BRICS summit which ended on Thursday ,24th of August, in Johannesburg South Africa Photo: Palácio do Planalto / Ricardo Stuckert ]

The Portuguese Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation on Thursday welcomed Brazil’s return to the highest level of the CPLP, emphasising the symbolism of Lula da Silva’s presence at the summit in São Tomé and Principe.

Portugal is “very pleased that Brazil has returned to participate at the highest level in these summits”, Francisco André – who is taking part this Friday in the Council of Ministers of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) – told Lusa two days before the summit of the Portuguese-speaking organisation in the capital of São Tomé.

“After an absence, we’re going to have President Lula da Silva taking part in this summit, which is a sign of the importance of the CPLP today on a global scale,” he said.

“What we expect is effective participation from Brazil and that response has already been given in a positive way, [with] the clearest sign we have for the future, which is the presence of President Lula da Silva this week” in São Tomé and Príncipe, the Portuguese official emphasised.

During the terms of former presidents Jair Bolsonaro (who never attended summits) and Dilma Rousseff (who was represented on one occasion by her number two, Michel Temer), Brazil’s institutional presence had been declining and the CPLP was rarely mentioned as a diplomatic concern for the country.

That’s why the arrival of Lula da Silva, who will visit Luanda before São Tomé, is “another sign of what has been Brazil’s return to the international stage”.

“I can’t hide the fact that we’re delighted to see Brazil once again sitting at the table, at the highest level and with a very strong political will to actively participate in the work and destiny of this organisation, together with all the member states,” said the Secretary of State.

At the summit, Francisco André also wants to “underline and renew Portugal’s commitment to the CPLP, its capacity for cooperation, dialogue and the sharing of positions with all the member states”.

With regard to the CPLP mobility agreement, signed at the last summit in Luanda in July 2021, “Portugal is here to reaffirm its commitment to the implementation” of this project, which is “extremely important for the functioning and relationship between all the citizens” of Portuguese-speaking countries.

Today, the summit is taking place “in a very complex global context, facing several crises,” he said.

“We’ve just come out of a pandemic crisis, but we’re still living under the threat of a climate emergency and we still have a security crisis in Eastern Europe, caused by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, with very difficult financial consequences on a global scale and which has been causing a lot of difficulties for all the countries in the world, but also very specifically for the CPLP countries,” he said.

For the next mandate, São Tomé and Príncipe has defined youth and sustainability as the vectors of its presidency, themes that are, for Francisco André, essential to guarantee the future of the organisation.

“What we want, within the scope of the CPLP, is always to find the best mechanisms to overcome these challenges in a concerted way that can generate more and more economic opportunities, but above all opportunities in terms of development” for everyone, he said.

To this end, the summit will approve an increase in the membership fees for each country, making it possible to “make this organisation ever stronger so that it can respond to what is essential, which are the ambitions and desires of the citizens” of Portuguese-speaking countries, explained the Secretary of State.

Regarding the possibility of observer countries paying membership fees to the organisation, Francisco André considers it “premature to anticipate what the summit’s decision will be”, because everything will depend on the “meeting of foreign ministers” on Friday.

However, he preferred to focus on the increase in membership fees (27 per cent), which will “provide the CPLP through the member states with a reinforcement of its budgetary capacity”.

“From the outset, Portugal has responded positively to this appeal from the CPLP’s executive secretary for the regular functioning” of the organisation, an effort to which other funds are added: “Portugal is perhaps the largest contributor to the CPLP’s cooperation project fund,” an effort that “is above all an investment” in the consolidation of the organisation.

The CPLP, which includes Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and Timor-Leste, is holding its 16th conference of heads of state and government in São Tomé and Príncipe next Sunday, under the slogan “Youth and Sustainability”.

Source: Lusa