"It is still interesting that President Joe Biden, who resumed the Africa-America summits, leaves the stage to visit two Portuguese-speaking countries", highlighted Paulo Portas, on Thursday night, in Lisbon.
Paulo Portas, who was speaking at a conference on the challenges of Lusofonia, under the pretext of the launch of the next issue of the magazine "Democracia e Liberdade", from the Adelino Amaro da Costa Institute, considered that the United States "has begun to rediscover Africa".
"The United States has returned to Africa, where it hasn't been for many years and let's be real: Barack Obama gives an absolutely extraordinary speech about Africa at Cairo University and that speech doesn't have much consequence", highlighted Portas, referring to the speech of June 4, 2009 by the former North American president.
"In Donald Trump's initial term there was no Africa", stressed the former head of Portuguese diplomacy, highlighting that Biden resumed the United States-Africa summits.
"The last one was in 2014. When the United States withdraws from the world, it gives space to China. It's that simple. In globalization there are no empty spaces. Whoever leaves the chair returns there and perhaps the chair will be occupied", he explained.
In his intervention, Paulo Portas lamented the "bad moment" that France is going through in the Sahel.
"I see with regret that one of the relevant European powers in Africa – certainly in these stories there are responsibilities on both sides – is not having a good time in Africa for a few years now. I am referring to France and the Francophonie in the Sahel But that's a fact," he said.
According to Paulo Portas, part of this "resentment in the Sahel against France is generated by coups d'état and this, for many Africans, especially younger ones, is a concern, because Africa had made extraordinary progress through its regional organizations, who are very strong and through the African Union, to institutionalize constitutionality".
Portas was referring to the African Union's principled position of not recognizing boards or governments that are not chosen through electoral means.
"We have had seven coups d'état, attempted or successful, in Sahel Africa in the last three years. This is something that only Africans can solve, as is evident with their organizations. But it is worrying. It is a kind of regression and which is decisive for investment", he warned.
The former Portuguese minister considered that there was "participation and interference" by Moscow in these coups d'état.
"Part of these coups d'état were admittedly, publicly stated by the African authorities, Russian participation and interference. It is one thing to carry out military cooperation, another thing to change regimes and depose presidents", he stressed.
Regarding the importance of Lusophony, Paulo Portas highlighted the language as a unifying factor in the Lusophone world.
"The vision of Lusophony is not a vision of Portugal. It is a sharing of Portuguese-speaking States. The factor that most unifies the Lusophone world is the language. What gives relevance to a language is its multicontinental character", he argued, highlighting that this is a condition for the Portuguese language to be among the most relevant and most used.
