The President of the Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, the country that will preside over the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP) for the next two years, challenged the organization this Sunday to aspire to “full mobility” for citizens.
In the opening speech of the 14th Conference of Heads of State and Government, which is taking place this Sunday in the capital of São Tomé, he affirmed that the CPLP must have the “ambition of having full mobility in the common space” and increasing the “interaction between the people that integrate it”.
Carlos Vila Nova wants the citizens of the nine CPLP countries to “enjoy the advantages” and “feel the importance” of belonging to this organization in their daily lives.
The mobility agreement was proposed by Portugal and Cape Verde and approved at the Luanda summit in 2021, and plans to facilitate the movement of Portuguese-speaking citizens within the space of the organization. Ratified in 15 months by all Member States, it is still applied internally in Portugal, Cape Verde and Mozambique.
The Head of State of São Tomé considered “a privilege, a source of great pride and an enormous responsibility” to host the 14th CPLP summit and congratulated his Angolan counterpart, João Lourenço, for the work carried out by Angola in the last two years . in which he held the rotating presidency of the organization.
Carlos Vila Nova considered that the results achieved by Angola constitute a “legacy of encouragement” for Sao Tome and Principe.
“The road is long and we are permanently put to the test”, specifically with “new global dilemmas”, which demand “collective construction and progress shoulder to shoulder”.
The CPLP, which includes Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, Sao Tome and Principe and East Timor, is holding today the 14th conference of Heads of State and Government, in Sao Tome and Principe, under the motto “Youth and Sustainability”.
Source: TSF
