The Diplomat
The Conference of Heads of State and Government of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) yesterday approved Spain’s accession as an Associate Observer State at the organisation’s Summit in Luanda, in the year in which the CPLP celebrates its 25th anniversary.
Spain’s candidacy was presented in 2020 through the submission of the corresponding Action and Promotion Plans for the Portuguese Language. The Autonomous Community of Galicia has given a notable boost to Spain’s candidacy, and, in fact, both the “Academía Galega da Lingua Portuguesa” and the “Consello da Cultura Galega” are already “Consultative Observers” of the CPLP, according to a communiqué from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The statement adds that “Spain attaches great importance to this admission as Associate Observer in this privileged forum for cooperation, a real bridge between continents, whose scope of collaboration is increasingly broad and multidimensional and whose Member States represent nearly 300 million people”.
From now on, together with the CPLP, Spain will work to analyse and specify the different areas of collaboration.
Spain”, says the communiqué, “considers that they offer a remarkable potential: the promotion of the Portuguese language at national and international level, in particular through a deepening of cooperation between the Cervantes Institute, the Camões Institute and the International Institute of Portuguese Language; the fight against gender violence, in the framework of our country’s firm commitment to a feminist foreign policy; economic and business collaboration, with the CPLP countries being key to the internationalisation of our companies; political and diplomatic cooperation, with a firm commitment to a rules-based multilateral order; and the contribution to universal access to vaccines as the best policy to curb the pandemic.
