President praises Angolan community as country’s head of state starts official visit
Angola’s president João Lourenço has started his official visit to Portugal, and everyone is saying ‘all the right things’.
Prime minister Luís Montenegro has talked of the “invaluable contribution” to the Portuguese economic fabric made by the Angolan community, pledging to “continue to create preferential conditions” for its full integration into the country.
President Marcelo has “praised the Angolan community” stating that “leaders leave their mark, laws evolve, but the people endure”.
“And we need each other”, Marcelo stressed. “We know that we only gain by treating each other well, because those who treat others badly end up facing bad treatment in return and, above all, miss the chance to treat others well.”
For his part, the Angolan president said that ‘relations between Portugal and Angola have never been so good”, and his hopes are for them only to improve.
This was all predictably diplomatic talk, skirting around the fact that the Portuguese government is making changes to the legal regime for the entry of foreigners into the is country which could well affect citizens of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), of which Angola is one.
President Marcelo’s words particularly suggest he believes the government’s changes will have to be tweaked to keep Portugal’s Portuguese-speaking allies smiling.
With the changes already being ‘pondered’ by counsellors in the Constitutional Court, the immediate future is to ‘soldier on’, making all the right noises so that this particular state visit goes swimmingly.
João Lourenço was received with full military honours at Belém Palace this morning, and both he and President Marcelo made statements to the media “without taking questions”.
Source material: LUSA
