Outgoing president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, has begun his last official visit, to Spain, where he will be received with military honours by King Felipe VI, whom he has met several times over the last ten years.
The official visits of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who steps down as country’s president on March 9, began in March ten years ago, in the Vatican and Madrid. This is largely why the Spanish capital is also the destination for his last official trip as head of state: “fulfilling the tradition of the beginning and end of his terms of office,” says a note on the official sites of the presidency.
The two-day trip will be an “opportunity to reaffirm and deepen the lasting ties of friendship and fraternity between the two countries and peoples,” according to the note adding that President Marcelo “will have the opportunity to thank Spain for its assistance during the storms that affected Portugal in recent weeks”.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa is expected to arrive in the Spanish capital late this afternoon and will be received on Friday at around 12:30 local time (11:30 in Lisbon) with military honours by Felipe VI at the Royal Palace in Madrid.
This will be followed by a meeting between the two heads of state and a lunch, also at the Royal Palace in Madrid, hosted by the King and Queen of Spain, Felipe VI and Letizia, in honour of the Portuguese President.
Speeches by Felipe VI and Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa are planned for this lunch.
The president will return to Lisbon tomorrow afternoon.
The head of state postponed this farewell visit to Madrid twice, in December and earlier this month. The first postponement was due to his unexpected surgery for an abdominal hernia. The second due to the storms that hit both countries earlier this month.
Over the last ten years, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has travelled to Spain 17 times for official visits, including a three-day state visit in April 2018, and other trips, for example, within the framework of the Organisation of Ibero-American States, the COTEC Foundation, cultural and sporting initiatives and others linked to Portugal and the Portuguese people, or bilateral relations between the two countries.
The president has met Felipe VI on several occasions, with whom he said, during his 2018 visit, he had a “magnificent relationship”.
Felipe VI travelled to Lisbon for the inauguration of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa as the president and, in the last ten years, he also made a state visit to Portugal in October 2016 – in addition to other trips, during which he met with the Portuguese head of state.
The heir to the Spanish throne, Princess Leonor de Borbón, also made her first official visit abroad to Portugal in 2024, at the invitation of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
Her sister, Princess Sofia , is also currently studying in Lisbon.
Source: LUSA
