While Volodymyr Zelensky was in Granada, Spain, participating in the third summit of the European Political Community – a meeting to which António Costa flew after participating in the morning of the October 5 celebrations in Lisbon – the President of the Republic announced, in a statement, that the Ukrainian president accepted his invitation to visit Portugal.
The date for such a visit was not announced (it is something that “the respective teams are working on”), but in his statement the President of the Republic said that Zelensky’s decision to go to Granada “was taken at the last minute”. , and this “very short” visit.
With this informative detail, Marcelo seemed to mean that the Ukrainian president’s visit to Portugal will be announced with little notice. And for the most part, no details are known about the program being prepared.
At the beginning of the week, several Portuguese media outlets announced a possible trip of Volodymyr Zelensky to Portugal on Friday, which, however, would not have been effective. Lusa contacted the Ukrainian presidency but could not confirm that Zelensky planned to visit the country this week.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa invited his Ukrainian counterpart to visit Portugal in August, during a visit to the capital of the country that has been trying to fend off an invasion from Russia for more than a year and a half. At that time, on the occasion of the celebration of the Ukrainian Independence Day, on August 24, the Portuguese Head of State said during an intervention in Ukrainian that Portugal will always support the country’s independence: “Portugal will and will, always with your independence. Without your self-defense there will be no peace and security in Europe.”
Decoration to be supplied
The President of the Republic also spoke at a summit on Crimea, a Ukrainian territory annexed by Moscow in 2014, saying that any peace solution to the conflict that excludes the reintegration of Crimea into the territory of Ukraine would be “noise ” is. At the same time, he assured that Portugal unequivocally supports Ukrainian aspirations to join the EU and NATO.
On February 15, the president awarded his Ukrainian counterpart the Grand Collar of the Order of Freedom. However, Zelensky refused – as he has refused all awards that tried to be presented to him, arguing that the attempt to fight the Russian invasion was made by “the entire Ukrainian people”.
In May this year, three months before Marcelo, the Prime Minister had also gone to Kiev to personally tell Zelensky that Ukraine’s European option should be welcomed with “open arms”. At the same time, however, he stressed that the EU accession processes are “very complex”, recalling that the Portuguese process lasted nine years.
At the time, he announced direct financial support from Portugal to Ukraine of 250 million euros, spread over three years. He also guaranteed the Portuguese “total availability” to participate in a program for the reconstruction of schools and kindergartens in Ukraine.
Although Zelensky never visited Portugal, he spoke to Portuguese delegates via video conference on April 21, 2022. The President of the Republic and the Prime Minister took part in that session (see photo). Days earlier, the PCP announced that it would not participate. And he justified himself as follows: “The PCP will not participate in a session of the Assembly of the Republic that is intended to provoke an escalation of war, contrary to the construction of the road to peace, with the participation of someone like Volodymyr Zelensky, who is a xenophobic person personified. and bellicose power, surrounded and supported by forces of a fascist and neo-Nazi nature, including those of a paramilitary nature, of which the so-called Azov Battalion is an example.”
Strong support in Portugal
A few days ago the 2023 edition of Transatlantic trends – an investigation under the responsibility of German Marshall Fund – showed that Portugal, of the fourteen NATO countries, is the most enthusiastic in supporting Ukraine’s accession to this political-military alliance. At the other extreme – the least enthusiastic – is Germany, which is almost divided in two (45% in favor of membership, 42% against).
From the same survey – in which 1,500 respondents in our country participated – Portugal is also the country that most supports Ukraine’s accession to the EU (81% in favor and 14% against) and the country that provides the most financial support for the reconstruction of Ukraine supports. Once again, Germany is the least supportive on both issues.
Source: DN
