This Monday, the President of Brazil drew a distinction between the positions of the President of Brazil on Ukraine and the relationship between the two countries, as politicians who confuse them “are unable to take responsible positions in Portuguese democracy”.
Speaking to journalists at the end of a train visit between Agualva-Cacém and Rossio stations, Luís Montenegro was asked if he planned to meet Lula da Silva next week, after PSD Vice-President Paulo Rangel urged the government on Sunday urged to distance itself from the Brazilian president’s statements that the European Union, NATO and the US are promoting the war in Ukraine.
“I will participate in the formal sessions in the Assembly of the Republic on April 25,” Montenegro replied, as the PSD’s position is “clear and unequivocal” regarding the two recent controversies over Lula’s visit to Portugal, between the 22 and April 25.
On the one hand, the PSD chairman recalled that the party defended that the welcome session for the President of Brazil “should take place on a different day and that it should not be confused with the solemn session reminiscent of April 25, in which the President of the Republic and the parties must express themselves freely and democratically”.
Parliament finally scheduled both for April 25: at 10 a.m. the welcome session for Lula da Silva and at 11:30 a.m. the formal session to mark the 49th anniversary of the 1974 revolution in Portugal, unopposed by the PSD.
“As for President Lula da Silva’s position and Brazil’s foreign policy regarding the war in Ukraine, there is a border that separates us completely: we have no complacency or any condescension with Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Clearly, both from the point of view of our party and from the point of view of the relationship between the Portuguese State and the President of Brazil”creased.
Asked whether these positions will in any way affect the participation of the PSD in the parliamentary session welcoming Lula, Montenegro stressed the need to distinguish between the two plans.
“We have a profound difference, elementary from a principle point of view. This does not mean that we have no respect for the Brazilian people who represent the President of Brazil. And more: we must not forget the hundreds of thousands of Portuguese living in Brazil and Brazilians in Portugal, we are countries with a common culture and history and with a very strong daily bond,” he stressed.
In this regard, the PSD chairman also added a ‘message’: “Those who cannot see this are no match for positions of responsibility in Portuguese democracy”he claimed.
The leader of the liberal initiative, Rui Rocha, defended that the Assembly of the Republic “cannot receive an ally of Putin like Lula on April 25”, recalling that the president of Ukraine spoke in the same parliament via video conference.
Chega president André Ventura called it “outrageous” that the PSD hailed “the presence of Lula da Silva on April 25 in Portugal” and confirmed that the party will organize what he calls the “largest demonstration ever against a foreign dignitary” . in Portuguese”.
The presence in the parliament of the President of Brazil has been shrouded in controversy since Foreign Minister João Gomes Cravinho spoke explicitly in February in a speech by Lula da Silva at the April Revolution’s solemn session in the Assembly of the Republic, pointing to its unprecedented character, which earned the opposition of PSD, IL and Chega.
The parliament finally decided that, instead of an intervention by the President of Brazil during the annual solemn commemoration session, it would hold a separate welcome session on the same day during Lula da Silva’s state visit to Portugal.
On Saturday, at the end of a visit to China, Brazil’s president defended that “the United States should stop encouraging war” in Ukraine and that “the European Union should start talking about peace”.
Source: DN
