"The next Council of Foreign Ministers, which will take place in a virtual way on December 9, will consider a draft resolution, not the final project on mobility," said Eurico Monteiro, in statements to Lusa by telephone, after a meeting of the permanent consultation committee of the CPLP (the ambassadors of member states), which took place this Thursday in a virtual way.
According to the Cape Verdean diplomat, the final document on mobility should therefore only "be discussed at the Council of Ministers meeting that will precede the next CPLP Heads of State and Government Summit," scheduled for July 2021, in Luanda.
The draft resolution, which will now go to the next meeting of foreign affairs ministers, "is the result of the work of the technical commissions, which ended in January this year, and should have the political backing, but will not yet be the final document," he stressed.
"There is no going back, what has been done so far is done", but "there are some details still to be settled" between member states on mobility, namely regarding "fees and emoluments to be charged for mobility", explained Eurico Monteiro.
Thus, the Council of Ministers on December 9 will not be an extraordinary meeting to approve the mobility project, as initially planned, given that the covid-19 pandemic had prevented it from taking place in April or May, as it was planned, but it will be an ordinary meeting with 10 issues on the agenda that were this Thursday being discussed by the ambassadors.
Besides the draft resolution on mobility, the next Council of Foreign Affairs Ministers will thus consider and approve the budget of CPLP and IILP - International Portuguese Language Institute, and a cooperation agreement between Member States in emergency situations.
The agenda will also include the CPLP headquarters agreement with Portugal, the new project to support the integration of Equatorial Guinea as a member state of the organization, an audit to the CPLP and another to the IILP and also the annual reports of the executive secretariat of the CPLP and also the IILP, said Eurico Monteiro.
The CPLP's member states are Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe, Portugal and Timor-Leste.
