Parliament will celebrate its 49th anniversary on April 25 with its traditional formal session, which will be preceded by a welcoming ceremony for Brazilian President Lula da Silva during a state visit to Portugal.
Contrary to usual, the April 25 formal session will begin at 11:30am on Tuesday, as there will be a formal welcome session at 10am for Brazil’s President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is in Portugal for a five-day state visit.
The participation of the Brazilian head of state in a session of the Assembly of the Republic on the day of the Carnation Revolution was controversial and earned strong criticism from the Liberal Initiative and Chega, a party that announced a demonstration of rejection in front of the parliament.
In addition to this protest action announced by Chega, according to the PSP, three more concentrations are planned in places close to the Assembly of the Republic in the morning, which will strengthen the police with various valences, including the intervention body.
After the welcome session, with interventions by Lula da Silva and the President of the Assembly of the Republic, the traditional solemn session of April 25, which the President of Brazil will no longer attend, will begin on its way to Madrid with an agenda of meetings with the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, Filipe VI of Spain and even a business forum.
In the hemicycle, the formal session will begin at 11:30 am, with speeches from the eight parties with parliamentary seats, in ascending order of representation: Livre, PAN, BE, PCP, IL, Chega, PSD and PS.
The President of the Republic’s Assembly, Augusto Santos Silva, will also speak, with the final intervention, as usual, by the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
Last year, at the commemoration of the 48th anniversary of April 25, which took place about two months after the start of the war in Ukraine, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa focused his speech on the need to invest more and create more conditions for the armed forces .
In the afternoon, between 3:30 and 6:00 p.m., the parliament is open to the public, as is the Prime Minister’s residence in São Bento, with the expectation that visitors will be able to move “directly” between the two spaces.
In the gardens of the Palacete de São Bento, there is also a program with a strong cultural focus, which starts at 2:30 pm and includes dances, children’s shows, handicraft workshops or even concerts, such as that of fado singer Ana Moura.
At the same time, the usual popular parade takes place along Lisbon’s Avenida da Liberdade, promoted by more than 40 civil society, party and trade union organizations, including the Associação 25 de Abril, PCP, Bloco de Esquerda, PS, BE, PEV, or even the centers of the trade unions CGTP and UGT.
In this year’s call for participation, the pageant’s promotion committee lists the areas in which it considers “it is necessary to comply with April”, such as education, health or living conditions, and in particular defends that it is necessary to respond to the “cries of teachers”.
Unlike the past two years when it organized its own initiative, the Liberal Initiative will also be part of this parade, an official party source told Lusa.
Still in the afternoon, at 3 p.m., Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa will participate at the Palace of Belém in the swearing-in ceremony of the three new judges of the Constitutional Court, replacing João Caupers, Pedro Machete and Lino Ribeiro.
Source: DN
