“What the Foreign Minister has done with the April 25th formal session in the Assembly of the Republic is regrettable, indeed an unforgivable blunder. The Foreign Minister has no right to speak on behalf of the Assembly of the Republic” (AR ), accused Luís Montenegro.
Speaking at the closing session of the 12th University of Europe in Anadia, the president of the PSD recalled that Portugal’s constitution, power system and sovereign bodies “each have their own space” and “the government does not speak on behalf of the parliament”.
“And then the foreign minister created a situation that is very sensitive from a diplomatic point of view,” the Social Democratic president continued in his speech.
Since, from his point of view, and “like it or not” the President of Brazil, Lula da Silva, the Portuguese “have a duty to respect a head of state, whatever country he comes from, but even more so as is a sister country like Brazil”.
“The case has been created, someone will have to come up with a solution. The solution cannot be for a head of state to speak at the formal session on April 25, that is unacceptable,” defended Luís Montenegro, who said Lula’s visit to Silva considered. “stained by an episode that shouldn’t have happened”.
In his opinion, April 25 in Portugal, the evocation of which is made in the AR, is “made by the voice of the Portuguese people, expressed by their legitimate representatives, the political parties, and it is the voice of the Portuguese people, expressed by their maximum representative who has the democratic legitimacy of the vote, that is the President of the Republic”.
“It is not to despise our guest, on the contrary, I think he himself would never want his visit to Portugal to be marked by such confusion,” he reflected.
In that sense, he appealed to the president of the AR and the political parties to “find enough room for President Lula on the 24th or the 26th.” [da Silva] be received with dignity in the mother house of Portuguese democracy”.
“You can even speak in the AR, but don’t confuse this with the evocation session of our revolution, which translated us the plurality of political opinion into free voting, independent of all Portuguese,” he concluded.
Source: DN
