Portugal’s PM and ministers taking part; PM to dine with President Biden
All eyes this week are on the NATO summit taking place in Washington, USA, between tomorrow (Tuesday) and Thursday.
Portugal will be represented by prime minister Luís Montenegro, foreign minister Paulo Rangel, and defence minister Nuno Melo.
On Wednesday, the PM will attend a dinner at the White House hosted by US president Joe Biden for the heads of state and government attending the summit.
Ostensibly, the summit is to mark the 75th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). It is being held in the same city where twelve countries – including Portugal – signed the treaty to ensure collective defence in 1949.
But practically, there is a lot more on the agenda – not least the situation of the war still grinding on in Ukraine, for which the embattled country relies on NATO support.
According to Lusa, “the support package for Ukraine – which is expected to set annual aid from the allies at 40 billion euros a year – will also involve NATO taking on the task of coordinating the military aid Ukraine receives to defend itself against Russian invasion, as well as training initiatives for its forces, through a command led by a three-star general and with around 700 people working at a NATO headquarters in Germany”.
Other matters pressing include “boosting member state defence and allied deterrence” (Expresso carried a topical article this week on how a number of countries, Portugal included, has been ‘massaging upwards’ the money they claim to spend on defence – and NATO chiefs are very much aware of this), and the need to continue to strengthen NATO’s global partnerships “especially in the Indo-Pacific”. To this end, leaders of Australia, Japan, New Zealand South Korea are understood to be attending the summit.
According to the provisional programme for the prime minister’s trip, Mr Montenegro will arrive in Washington early tomorrow afternoon (15:20 local time, 20:20 Lisbon time) and will immediately take part in the ceremony commemorating NATO’s 75th anniversary, which will feature speeches by the organisation’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, and President Joe Biden.
On Wednesday, Montenegro, accompanied by the ministers for foreign affairs and defence, will attend the official greetings ceremony by NATO’s secretary general and the President of the United States to the heads of state and government present in Washington and the meeting of the North Atlantic Council, the allies’ main political decision-making body.
Montenegro will then go, accompanied by his wife, to the dinner at the White House for the heads of state and government and, according to the programme released by NATO, there will be separate dinners for foreign ministers in Washington – hosted by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken – at the US Library of Congress, and for the defence ministers at Fort McNair, one of the oldest US Army bases.
On the last day of the summit, Montenegro, Rangel and Nuno Melo will take part in another meeting of the North Atlantic Council – this time with partners from the Indo-Pacific and the European Union, followed by a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission (NUC).
In 2024, there are now 32 NATO member states – the most recent being Finland and Sweden, which joined during Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The summit will also be the last for current secretary general Jens Stoltenberg, who will be succeeded by former Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte.
Under the leadership of Norwegian Stoltenberg (which began on 1 October 2014) NATO gained four new members: Montenegro (2017), North Macedonia (2020), Finland (2023) and Sweden (2024).
Source material: LUSA
