Initially scheduled, as usual, for July - the month in which the Lusophone organization celebrates its anniversary - the summit of heads of state and government ended up being scheduled for "2 and 3 of September", according to "a proposal from Angola in that meaning", said Ambassador Francisco Ribeiro Telles.
The diplomat recalled that there have already been other summits of heads of state and government of the CPLP that did not take place in July and stressed that they are "calendar and logistical reasons" that dictate this postponement, rejecting any political reason.
At this next summit, a proposal on citizens' mobility within the CPLP space is expected to be approved. A proposal that, before, must be approved by the Extraordinary Council of Ministers (meeting of the heads of diplomacy), which still has no date set.
The joint technical meeting at which the proposal for a draft mobility agreement at CPLP will continue to be debated will take place this week, at the CPLP headquarters in Lisbon, between Wednesday and Friday.
The objective of this meeting of the delegations of the Member States is to continue the debate already held on 29 and 30 October 2019, in Lisbon, as defined in the Council of Ministers of the CPLP that took place in July 2019, in the Cape Town Mindelo, says a statement from the organization issued this week.
"The XII Conference of Heads of State and Government of the CPLP, held on 17 and 18 July 2018, in Santa Maria, Cape Verde, reaffirmed that mobility and circulation within the CPLP space are an essential instrument for the deepening of the Community and the progressive construction of CPLP Citizenship", the same note adds.
“In the 'Declaration on People and Mobility at CPLP', the leaders of the Member States underlined the urgency of the progressive creation of conditions aimed at facilitating mobility between the countries that make up the CPLP, taking into account the specificities of each country , in its most varied domains, namely, normative, institutional and regional insertion, in order to ensure that the solutions adopted are solid, safe and feasible”, the same note adds.
The proposal of the rotating presidency of the CPLP, which now belongs to Cape Verde, goes towards flexible mobility (movement of people) at various speeds in the space of the Lusophone community.
Mobility may also be one of the issues to be addressed at the next meeting of the Council of State in Portugal on the CPLP, scheduled for Friday.
The Luanda summit also marks the end of the mandate of the CPLP Cape Verdean presidency and the beginning of the Angolan presidency.
The organization's member states are Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and Timor-Leste.
