The PSD felt this Wednesday that the formal welcome session for Brazil’s president “deserved the dignity of having its own day”, reiterating that it would be better not to take place on April 25.
Speaking to journalists in the Assembly of the Republic, the parliamentary leader of the PSD, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, stressed that the most important thing for the party was that the two sessions should not get mixed up, and assured that the Social Democrats would support the decision respect to hold both on the same day “for agenda and diplomatic reasons” and who will be represented by the entire bank.
The welcome session of Brazilian President Lula da Silva to the Assembly of the Republic will take place on April 25 at 10 a.m., before the solemn session commemorating the revolution, scheduled for 11:30 a.m., the Leaders’ Conference this Wednesday.
“The position of the PSD was clear from the beginning: we welcome the arrival of the President of Brazil, a very important country in relations with Portugal, we welcome the fact that the Assembly of the Republic will hold a formal session with the President of Brazil, which we said could never be with the April 25 formal session and it won’t happen and preferably shouldn’t even be on that day”said Miranda Sarmento.
The president of the PSD bank welcomed that “no decision had been made to combine the formal session with the reception” of Lula da Silva, despite regretting “they are both on the same day”.
“The solemn session with the president of Brazil will be tarnished, it deserved the dignity of its own day”he said, dismissing any manifestation of protest from his group.
Asked about IL’s decision to be institutionally represented only by the parliamentary leader and its stance against Chega in the presence of Lula da Silva, Miranda Sarmento said it is not his responsibility to comment on other parties’ decisions.
“Responsible parties who intend to be a government and have never been before and parties like the PSD who have already been a government and will soon be a government must understand that there are diplomatic problems and that Brazil is one of the most important partners which Portugal has for historical, cultural and economic reasons”he claimed.
Miranda Sarmento rejected that Lula da Silva’s reception in the Assembly of the Republic could overshadow the April 25 formal session.
“I don’t think so, I believe that the President of Brazil deserved his formal session to take place on a specific day and not on a day where for years we have had a solemn session reminiscent of the day when the Estado Novo ended and the democratic process in Portugal”he said.
About a month ago, the head of state, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, criticized right-wing parties in parliament for resisting Brazil’s president, Lula da Silva, to speak at the April 25 formal session.
“How was it possible to open a debate on April 25 on the presence of a representative of a people and a state that was a forerunner, a pioneer in the phases of Portuguese decolonization, as if this were not an obvious reality, of course like breathing?” he asked, concluding that “our democracy is still very imperfect”.
Last September, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa spoke at the Brazilian Congress in Brasília, during the solemn commemoration of Brazil’s 200 years of independence.
In December, when he went to Brasília for the inauguration of Lula da Silva, the Portuguese head of state announced that the President of Brazil would go to Portugal from April 22 to 25 this year for a Luso-Brazilian summit and a state visit. would culminate in his participation in the ceremony on April 25.
In February, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, João Gomes Cravinho, spoke explicitly in a speech by the President of Brazil at the April 25 session of the Assembly of the Republic, pointing out its unprecedented nature, which sparked controversy and criticism because it was a ceremony. under the responsibility of parliament.
PSD president Luís Montenegro then accused the foreign minister of committing an “unforgivable blunder” by allowing Brazil’s president to speak on April 25, which he found “unacceptable” and demanded a “solution”.
Instead of an intervention by the President of Brazil at the solemn annual commemoration meeting on April 25, the parliament decided to hold a separate welcome session during Lula da Silva’s state visit to Portugal, which is known to take place on the same day. 90 minutes early.
Source: DN
