In an interview to Lusa after a five-day visit to Angola Berta Nunes said that there is every opening on the Portuguese side, and work is underway to sign a memorandum of understanding to be signed probably at the summit of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), scheduled for next July in Luanda.
"We will see if it is possible to facilitate youth mobility between Portugal and Angola, in the sense that young people can go to study and work for short periods in Portugal under that youth memorandum," said Berta Nunes.
According to the Secretary of State for Communities, the two governments are very committed to the agreement that has already been given by foreign ministers, the Agreement on Mobility within the CPLP, in order to progressively build a CPLP citizenship.
The Portuguese leader stressed that this is a work that has to be done so that there is also an agreement between the countries and that progressively will be increasingly extended and the ease of mobility increasingly deepened.
"But it is a work that has to be done bilaterally and that has to be deepened and all this is also done with caution, with care, but in fact, our goal and our desire is to deepen this facilitation of mobility, not only bilaterally, but in the CPLP space," she said.
Berta Nunes stressed that cooperation with Angola is very important and was reaffirmed in the various meetings she had with the Angolan authorities, particularly in the area of education, teacher training or vocational training.
The official said that there is an ongoing program in Angola called "Saber Mais" (Know More), which is already in its third phase, for the qualification and training of teachers, the vocational training project very much directed to young people and others, as well as the project of resilience and food security, with small producers, which is now starting, with a high funding, in addition to cooperation in the area of defense and justice.
"So cooperation is important for Portugal and the most important cooperation that Portugal has within the CPLP is really with Angola and we were also shown the positive expectation and interest that Angola has in these various cooperation projects, which are always designed in conjunction with the Angolan authorities," she said.
Berta Nunes stressed that Angola is a country with a lot of potential at various levels, noting that the Angolan authorities have taken measures to facilitate and attract investment.
"And we are also very attentive to these measures, even because we have quite a few companies here that want to continue and we have other Portuguese companies that want to invest in Angola," she said.
Questioned about whether she had dealt with the Angolan authorities on the issue of the debts of the Angolan State to Portuguese companies, Berta Nunes said that the matter is not yet completely closed, but that progress has been made.
The Secretary of State for Communities made a positive balance of her five-day visit to Angola, her first to the country, which included the provinces of Benguela and Huíla.
"As Secretary of State for Communities I am very pleased with this visit, we had the opportunity to inaugurate the honorary consulate of Lubango, we have already published the new consul who was appointed honorary consul in Lubango," said Berta Nunes, stressing that the Lubango community, currently served by Benguela, will avoid travelling for consular acts.
For Benguela, Berta Nunes pointed out as news the commitment to begin construction of the consulate building in that province on the country's southern coast, which is currently in rented premises.
In the dialogue with the community in Benguela, a "great desire to have this space" was also expressed, as well as that of a Portuguese school, similar to Luanda and Lubango.
In Luanda, Berta Nunes considered "fruitful" the dialogue with the community, the largest in Angola, about 100 thousand Portuguese, and also raised some questions, which will be seen bilaterally at the Government level, including the issue of driving licenses, the payment of pensions, which currently can not be done directly in Portugal, and the problem of joining the voluntary social insurance, as a way to make discounts directly to social security in Portugal.
About the operation of consulates, Berta Nunes admitted that there are complaints and constraints, stressing that one of the goals is to strengthen the consular work, now affected by covid-19.
"We have to understand that with covid-19 the difficulties were greater, we can't have too many people being attended to at the same time, we had to reorganize all the attendance, we also had to force scheduling to avoid crowds," she explained.
According to Berta Nunes, the obligation of online scheduling is what has brought more difficulties to people, especially in Luanda, where there is more pressure at this time, being necessary more dissemination of the new mode of operation.
