The President of the PSD, Luís Montenegro, will launch in Brussels on Wednesday a new edition of the “Sentir Portugal” initiative, dedicated this month to the Portuguese communities in several European countries.
The tour lasts until March 28 and, in addition to the Belgian capital, also includes visits to Düsseldorf (Germany), Luxembourg, Paris and Geneva (Switzerland).
This will be the seventh edition of the “Sentir Portugal” initiative, a commitment made by Luís Montenegro at the PSD’s 40th Congress to spend one week per month in the country’s different districts, and in which he will also organize visits to the Portuguese diaspora.
“Portuguese communities in Europe are one of the most important strategic assets that contribute to the affirmation of our identity, culture and language. The vast majority of Portuguese emigrants maintain historical, cultural, social and economic ties with Portugal”says the PSD in a statement, pointing to the aim of this week “contact with local reality and dialogue with the Portuguese in the diaspora, Portuguese descendants, families and institutions”.
Montenegro’s program in Brussels will start with a lunch with PSD representatives in the European Parliament and will include meetings with the President of this institution, Maltese politician Roberta Metsola, and with the President of the European People’s Party (PPE), the German Manfred Weber. end the day with a working session with local PSD militants.
On Thursday, the day the European Council starts in Brussels, the PSD president will attend the traditional EPP summit in the morning and then meet with the president of the European Commission, the German Úrsula von der Leyen.
From Brussels, Montenegro will depart for a tribute at the Portuguese military cemetery in Richebourg (France), where about 1,800 Portuguese soldiers who died in World War I are buried and will dine in Düsseldorf later that day with militants from PSD Germany.
On Friday, the chairman of the PSD, already in Luxembourg, will visit a construction company, meet local militants and dine with representatives of the Christian Social Party (CSV). Paris.
Luís Montenegro’s agenda, on Sunday in Paris, includes participation in a meeting with PSD Europe structures, a meeting with councilors of Portuguese communities elected by France and a dinner with businessmen from the Franco-Portuguese Chamber of Commerce, with whom they can watch football will watch match between the selections of Portugal and Luxembourg.
On the 27th, Monday, the President of the PSD will visit the Portuguese Consulate in Paris, a Portuguese ambulance company – “Les Dauphins” – the Memorial of Portuguese Immigration and will be received in the Chamber of Dourdan, in the Paris region, chaired by a Portuguese, Paolo de Carvalho.
The last day of Luís Montenegro’s trip, on the 28th, will be spent in Geneva, where he will hold meetings via videoconference of the Permanent Commission of the PSD (hard core of the leadership) and of the Acreditar movement (which is preparing to party manifesto), ending with a meeting and dinner with PSD Switzerland militants.
In the last parliamentary elections, in January 2022, the PSD did not elect a single deputy for Europe (the two parliamentarians went to the PS, contrary to the number of mandates registered in 2019), after the Constitutional Court ordered that the right to vote in this circle (at the first count the Social Democrats had one deputy and the Socialists the other).
On that occasion, more than 157,000 votes cast by voters in the Europe Circle were declared invalid because valid votes were mixed with invalid votes during the count, not accompanied by a copy of the ID, as required by law.
Recently, the PSD introduced a bill – approved in the specialty and which will now be debated in the specialty in parliament – to test remote electronic voting for residents abroad in next year’s European elections (which would be piloted as a not waive the exercise of personal voting).
The PSD diploma is also intended to extend the possibility for emigrants to vote by mail in presidential and European elections, as is already the case in legislative elections.
Source: DN
