The head of state, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and the president of the Assembly of the Republic, Augusto Santos Silva, will represent Portugal this week in the celebrations of the bicentennial of Brazil’s independence.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa travels to Brazil invited by his counterpart, Jair Bolsonaro, by whom he will be received this Tuesday at the Itamaraty Palace, shortly after arriving in Brasilia.
Augusto Santos Silva, the second figure of the Portuguese State, will be in Brasilia at the invitation of the president of the Brazilian Federal Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco.
The program of the Portuguese head of state, who travels today from Lisbon to the Brazilian capital, begins with a brief bilateral meeting with Jair Bolsonaro, at 6:30 p.m. (10:30 p.m. in Lisbon), with an expected duration of 15 minutes.
According to the Presidency of the Portuguese Republic, the President of Brazil will receive in the same format the other Heads of State of the countries of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) present in Brasilia.
Next, the Portuguese head of state will visit an exhibition on D. Pedro I of Brazil and IV of Portugal, in Itamaraty, and will attend a commemorative reception for the bicentennial of Brazil’s independence, in the palace gardens.
The commemorations of the bicentennial of the independence of Brazil take place when the official campaign for the Brazilian presidential elections on October 2 is underway, with a possible second round on October 30, in which candidates are presented, among others, Bolsonaro and former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Inácio Lula da Silva.
On Wednesday, the day that marks the proclamation of the independence of Brazil in 1822, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa will attend the civic-military parade on September 7, offer a lunch to the Heads of State and Government of the CPLP at the ambassador’s residence of Portugal in Brasilia and will have a meeting with the Portuguese community in this city.
In the evening, the President of the Republic and the President of the Assembly of the Republic will both attend a dinner offered by the President of the Brazilian Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco.
On Thursday, the bicentennial of the independence of Brazil will be celebrated in a solemn session in the National Congress, in which Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa will intervene and in which Augusto Santos Silva will also be present.
The program of the head of state in Brazil ends with a reception for the Portuguese community at the Navio Escola Sagres, in Rio de Janeiro, on Friday.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was in Brazil two months ago, between July 2 and 4, visiting Rio de Janeiro, where he celebrated the centenary of the first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic, and São Paulo, for the inauguration of the Book Biennial , which in this year’s edition had Portugal as the honored country.
That visit was scheduled to end in Brasilia, with a lunch with the president of Brazil, but Jair Bolsonaro announced through the media that he would no longer receive him, a decision he justified by the fact that Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa had met. with Lula da Silva before Silva, in Sao Paulo.
Faced with Bolsonaro’s attitude, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa began maintaining the program, waiting for a written communication, and then gave up going to Brasilia, but always downplaying this episode and the impact on bilateral relations.
At the same time, his return to Brazil, in September, for the celebrations of the 200 years of independence was taken for granted: “The Senate has already invited me to be the guest speaker. But the president of the Portuguese parliament comes with me [Augusto Santos Silva]and the Government will come with me, to demonstrate that the organs of sovereignty will all be here at this fundamental moment”, he declared, at that moment.
Source: TSF
