In response to the problems that have arisen with visas for citizens of CPLP Member States under the community's Mobility Agreement and the new law on foreigners, ambassador Zacarias da Costa tried to play it down: "We all always want an ideal framework, but reality is different".
"We always have to look at the means available in human terms, in logistical terms, to implement a large-scale agreement, with very large consequences for the life of our Member States", he stressed, in an interview with Lusa.
The Timorese diplomat Zacarias da Costa is completing his first term as executive secretary of the CPLP and begins his second term with the inauguration at the next summit of heads of state and government, to be held on Sunday in São Tomé and Príncipe, who will assume the organization's next rotating presidency.
For the official, everyone is "looking at Portugal, because the flow from other Member States is greater [to here]", which he considers normal.
On the other hand, he added that he has had "working meetings with the Government of Portugal" and said he believes that "what was not well in the first months of the implementation [of the CPLP visas] will be corrected".
"We have the guarantee of the Government of Portugal that all the means that will be necessary will also be available so that we can, in the very near future, if possible, even correct some anomalies that existed in the first months of the implementation [of visas for Portuguese-speaking citizens]", he stressed.
However, he stressed: "It is up to Portugal, in the first place, to evaluate the first months of implementation and, naturally, then propose measures that can respond in a favorable and positive way to the concerns of our citizens".
When asked what "anomalies" he highlighted, he pointed out that they are public: "Those that occurred in terms of visa applications, the slowness that can be noticed in some consulates, both in relation to students and in relation to people looking for a job" , exemplified.
The Mobility Agreement approved at the last CPLP summit, in Angola, in July 2021, resulted from a proposal by the presidency of Cape Verde.
The document was approved by the nine Member States and ratified in 15 months by all.
But, so far, only Portugal, Cape Verde and Mozambique are already applying it domestically.
The Association for the Defense of the Rights of Immigrants says that there is a lot of "regret" among immigrants who applied for a visa in Portugal because the CPLP visa allows you to enter Portugal but does not allow you to travel through the Schengen area.
In two months, more than 113,000 CPLP citizens obtained residence permits in Portugal under the new Foreigners' Law, which provides for ease of entry for citizens of that community space based on the Mobility Agreement.
