The Diplomat
On the occasion of the end of his mission as Ambassador of Portugal to Spain, Joao Mira Gomes offered a reception last Wednesday at his official residence attended by numerous Spanish and Portuguese personalities, among them the head of HM the King’s Household, Camilo Villarino, and the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas.
The ambassador underlined that Spain and Portugal maintain intense and fluid relations covering all areas, from politics to culture, including economy, security, cooperation, research, energy development and tourism, to name but a few sectors.
Port joked at the beginning of his speech, noting that he was not going to expand on the events of the last five years because “it would be long to take stock of the last 5 years”, and then he went on to describe each and every one of the projects, especially in infrastructure, which he described as “fundamental for the future of our countries”.
He referred to cross-border cooperation with the Spanish autonomous communities to “combat the Portugal and Spain that have been emptied”; to military cooperation “which we need to make stronger within the framework of NATO, the EU and the UN in the complicated times we are living in”; to the cooperation of the security forces “in the fight against organized crime”; and to civil cooperation “as we have seen in the fires in Portugal or the DANA tragedy in Spain”.
All this within the framework of a solid political cooperation, both in the Ibero-American and European frameworks, and of a business cooperation that has contributed to form a more integrated market with greater exporting capacity.
“Nor will I speak,” he concluded, ”of educational cooperation, from which 55,000 Portuguese students in Spain benefit, or of tourism, which has set a record for visitors to both countries.”
Without forgetting the Portuguese community in Spain and Andorra, he announced that he hopes that “in the near future Valencia will join” the extensive network of consulates that Portugal maintains in Spain and Andorra.
With thanks to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, especially, to King Felipe VI, as well as an express mention to the mayor of Badajoz, present at the reception, Joao Mira Gomes ended his speech with an emotional “Thank you, Spain!”. However, as he said at the beginning, “this is not a farewell”. And he was right because his last act as ambassador will be the Spanish-Portuguese business meeting to be held on the 19th in Vigo.
