Lisbon, June 16, 2026 (Lusa) - The president of Portugal quoted the Canadian prime minister on Tuesday on the role of middle powers and called for the creation of a “broad Atlantic community”, combined with a “renewed partnership with the United States”.
On the subject of transatlantic relations, according to António José Seguro, there must be “the ambition and capacity to build a broad Atlantic community, based on shared values and interests”, with “a view” of the Atlantic “that cannot be fixed solely on the United States”, and which involves “a bridge between Europe and Canada, Latin America and Africa”.
In a speech at the opening of a conference marking the 2nd anniversary of the Now TV news channel, at a hotel in Lisbon, Seguro criticised the “superpowers that want to be empire-states” – also targeting, though without naming them, the United States of America.
António José Seguro cited, among other examples, “the threats to Greenland’s sovereignty and control of the Panama Canal” and “the military intervention in Caracas, Venezuela”, as well as “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine” and “the militarisation of artificial islands in the South China Sea”.
He also referred to “tariff wars and rare earth wars, cyberattacks, hybrid warfare, ghost fleets” and “the very race to space and the Moon” in “disputes over the appropriation of resources” as signs that we have entered “the era of ‘hard power’, in which the behaviour of empire-states is resurfacing”.
He then cited Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas” on the development of artificial intelligence and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech in Davos on “the breakdown of the world order” and the role of middle powers, as “perhaps the two great testimonies of reflection produced this year on a global scale”.
Seguro highlighted Carney’s phrase “the power of the less powerful begins with honesty”, and stated: “Bear this phrase in mind, because this is precisely where Europe and Portugal must position themselves”.
He reiterated, in this context, the need for “European strategic autonomy”, which in his view “cannot be reduced to a slogan; it is a condition for survival” and requires “a common defence, with a solid institutional framework and adequate resources” and “energy and technological autonomy”.
“And it requires, as I emphasise at this conference dedicated to transatlantic relations, a renewed partnership with the United States. A lasting relationship, with commitments between equals, based on loyalty and reciprocity, and without subservience or rupture. It is a conclusion that is part of our daily lives, easy to achieve: true friendship does not require permanent agreement; rather, it is affirmed through mutual respect”, he added.
He added that, “another conclusion” that is already being “sought to be realised” is “a broader view” of the Atlantic, “which cannot focus solely on the United States”.
“The ambition and capacity to build a broad Atlantic community, based on shared values and interests, is one of the greatest strategic opportunities of the present. All the more so when the world is fragmenting into blocs. Portugal, by virtue of its history, its language and its geography, is in a unique position to help weave this network,” he concluded.
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