Lisbon, Feb. 19, 2025 (Lusa) - Portugal and Brazil are holding the 14th bilateral summit between the two countries today in Brasilia, with 11 ministers from the 24th Constitutional Government of the PSD/CDS-PP government, led by Luís Montenegro.
The 14th Luso-Brazilian Summit will be attendedThis will be the second Luso-Brazilian Summit of Lula da Silva's current term as President of Brazil and the first for Luís Montenegro, whose government took office on 2nd April last year. by Portugal's prime minister and the ministers of foreign affairs, the presidency, defence, justice, education, health, economy, environment and energy, youth and modernisation, agriculture and fisheries, and culture.
The Portuguese government delegation arrived in Brasilia on Tuesday and the prime minister accompanied the last two points of the official visit of the president ofPortugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, to Brazil, who returns to Lisbon on Wednesday.
According to the programme sent to the media, the Portuguese prime minister and the President of Brazil will meet in the morning at the Planalto Palace, while sectoral ministerial meetings take place, followed by the plenary meeting, the signing ceremony for bilateral instruments and the press conference, scheduled for 13:00 local time (16:00 in Lisbon).
Afterwards, Luís Montenegro's programme includes a lunch hosted by the Brazilian president at the Itamaraty Palace, a visit to the Chancellery of the Portuguese Embassy, where the signing of the constitutive act of a network of young Portuguese postgraduates in Brazil is planned, and a reception for the Portuguese community in Brasilia.
On Thursday, the prime minister will travel from the Brazilian capital to São Paulo to close a Luso-Brazilian Business Economic Forum.
According to a Brazilian diplomatic source, around 20 bilateral agreements in defence, security, justice, science, health, trade, energy, and culture were being prepared to be signed at the 14th Luso-Brazilian Summit.
On Tuesday, the president of Portugal announced that the Portuguese government plans to create seven more consulates, five of which will be in Brazil and perhaps one in Recife.
The 13th Luso-Brazilian Summit took place in Lisbon on 22 April 2023, when the previous PS government headed by António Costa was in office. It ended with signing 13 bilateral cooperation agreements, one of which concerned the equivalence of primary and secondary education studies.
The summit ended a six-and-a-half-year absence of meetings between the two countries' governments. The last time was in Brasilia in November 2016, with António Costa and the then-President of Brazil, Michel Temer.
Internally, the prime minister's trip to Brazil takes place before he faces the first motion of no-confidence against his government, tabled on Tuesday by Chega and which could be discussed on Friday in parliament (where it is sure to be defeated), and which has its origins in the situation of the company in which he was a partner until June 2022 and which now belongs to his wife and their children.
Correio da Manhã reported on Saturday that the company Spinumviva "could benefit from the change to the land law approved by the government" and that, as the prime minister "is married to the firm's main partner", this would leave him "in a situation of potential conflict of interest".
In a written response to the newspaper, the prime minister - who has not yet spoken publicly on the subject - defended that there is no conflict of interest and stated that since 30 June 2022, he has not been a partner in the company of which he was the founder and manager, and that "no real estate business linked to the legislative amendment" of the land law "has ever been, is not and will not be the object of the company's activity".
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