The President of the Republic was on an official visit to Switzerland, where he was accompanied by the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro.
The celebrations for the Day of Portugal, Camões and the Portuguese Communities took the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, on an official trip to Switzerland, home to the second largest Portuguese emigrant community.
On the second and final day of the visit, in front of around two hundred emigrants in Zurich, the President of the Republic promised “more”. “We promise even more presence and more attention, for a very simple reason: because that’s the way we are and that’s the commitment we made with this first meeting,” he said.
Speaking to journalists, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa welcomed the harmony with the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, who “in his conversation with the councillors, both from the community and from the diaspora, answered the various questions one by one, and there are many”.
And if, on June 10 this year, the President of the Republic had already admitted to journalists that he intended to celebrate Portugal Day in 2025 in the “south”, on Wednesday the media finally learned which region Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was referring to: Venezuela.
“If the Prime Minister doesn’t mind, he’ll understand why I’m saying this, it’s a dream I’ve had for a long time. If the conditions are right, I’d love us to go to Venezuela, it’s a change of continent, it’s a dream of ours, of a community that’s been there for so many years and that has done so much for the name of Portugal,” he assured, admitting that first we need to see “if there are conditions to make the dream come true”.
The high-level Portuguese visit to Switzerland was praised by the country’s president, Viola Amherd, who showed “admiration for the Portuguese community” and paid it “a compliment”, as well as “its presence and importance for the future”, according to Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
The Swiss president also accepted an invitation to visit Portugal by the end of the year.
From Switzerland, the government reveals that it has already made a request for PRR disbursement
Also from Switzerland, in a speech during a meeting with the Portuguese community in Zurich, the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, shared that, on Tuesday evening, “a request was submitted to the European Commission for the disbursement of the third and fourth payments of the PRR, amounting to 713 million euros, which was pending some legislative decisions and not only that have been achieved in these 60 days”.
Montenegro – who considered it a “privilege” to be able to “meet so many compatriots” at the end of his two-day official visit to Switzerland – assured that “the whole country is mobilizing to implement the biggest investment plan ever designed with European funds”.
On Wednesday, the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister closed the double commemoration of June 10, which this year had Switzerland as its chosen foreign country, home to the second largest Portuguese emigrant community.
After a day spent in Geneva on Tuesday and a stopover in Bern for a meeting with the president of the Swiss Confederation, Viola Amhed, the head of state and the government spent the evening in Zurich, before returning to Portugal.