Eduardo González
King Felipe VI received the President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in Madrid this Friday. Rebelo de Sousa finally had the opportunity to make his last official visit to Spain before leaving office.
This was the third attempt, in just over two months, by the Portuguese leader to make an official visit to Spain. Rebelo de Sousa will hand over the Presidency of the Portuguese Republic to António Seguro next March, after ten years in office. The first visit, a State Visit, was scheduled for December 11-13, but was postponed due to health reasons. The second attempt took place on February 6, this time as an official visit, but it was also postponed due to Storm Leonardo, which caused flooding in several parts of Portugal.
“It is an honor for the Queen and me to welcome you back to Madrid. This visit, so eagerly awaited and prepared with such affection, has had to be postponed twice, most recently on February 6th, due to the series of storms that have battered the Iberian Peninsula,” the King recalled in his speech during the official luncheon offered to the Portuguese President.
During Friday’s official visit, the Portuguese President was received by the King at the Royal Palace in Madrid. The Spanish delegation included, among others, the Spanish Ambassador to Lisbon, Juan Fernández Trigo, and the Secretary of State for the European Union, Fernando Mariano Sampedro. The Portuguese delegation included the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paulo Rangel, and the Portuguese Ambassador to Madrid, José Augusto Duarte.
Following the bilateral meeting between the two heads of state, King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia hosted an official luncheon for President Rebelo de Sousa, during which the King delivered a brief address. “The brotherhood between Spain and Portugal, that spontaneous feeling rooted in history, is also nourished by gestures, and this visit, just weeks before the end of your Presidency, is one of the many you have extended to Spain in recent years,” he affirmed.
“There were times, Mr. President, when Spaniards and Portuguese turned their backs on each other, as so many European countries did, in a historical period when it was commonplace to assert one’s own interests against those of one’s neighbor,” he recalled. “We learned the lessons of history, and today we understand that our interdependence is an enormous asset, one that we neither want nor can do without,” he continued.
“We have just commemorated the 40th anniversary of our accession to the European Communities. We remembered it together a few weeks ago in the Parliament in Strasbourg,” the King recalled. “Europe is experiencing an existential moment,” he warned. “We must learn to reconcile strengthening our strategic autonomy with preserving a Europe of well-being, social cohesion, basic services, and culture,” because “the credibility of European integration will now be measured by the balance between our ability to respond to new challenges and our fidelity to the Union’s founding values,” he warned.
For his part, Rebelo de Sousa highlighted the unique and special relationship between Portugal and Spain and stated that both countries should remain “increasingly united to grow their scale and thus compete more effectively globally.” “Spain was and continues to be a unique case for Portugal and the Portuguese people,” and therefore it is “no coincidence” that Spain was chosen as the destination for his first and last official visits as head of state, he affirmed.
“In the past, we often competed against each other in the rest of the world,” but “today, and increasingly so in the future, Portugal and Spain are united to increase their scale and thus be able to compete better globally and also better defend the rules-based international order, international law, the UN Charter, and human rights,” he emphasized.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa also expressed his conviction that the next president, António José Seguro, will choose Spain as his first destination for foreign visits and “reaffirm the fraternity” between Portugal and Spain and between the Portuguese and Spanish people.
The conservative Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has been President of the Portuguese Republic since March 9, 2016. In the 2021 Portuguese presidential elections, he was re-elected for a second term, which concludes this year, after ten years at the helm of his country. His successor will be the socialist António Seguro, who on February 8th obtained a resounding victory in the second round of the presidential elections over the far-right candidate André Ventura.