Welcome to the Official page of the State Visit to Spain

Congratulations, Your Majesties
Congratulations, Your Highnesses
Congratulations, Spain

Both my wife and I am very happy that our visit should take place at such a felicitous moment for Spain.

I would first of all thank Your Majesty for your gracious words which picture so abundantly the consideration and affection you feel for Portugal and that Your Majesty well knows is reciprocated. I also wish to express my deep gratitude, as well as that of my wife, for Your Majesty’s invitation for us to visit Spain and for the especially warm reception given us.

The visit which I initiated today is the first State Visit made since having taken office last March. I wanted it to be so, in the name of everything that we have in common – History, culture, economic relations and cooperation, but also the strength and the complicity of friendliness.

Portugal has in you, Your Majesty, a warm friend, who is well acquainted with Lusitanian lands and peoples.

I cannot moreover forget the surprise shown by many when, in 1988, Your Majesty delivered, in fluent Portuguese, the first speech of a Spanish monarch in Portugal’s Parliament.

The affection Your Majesty holds for the people of Portugal is well known. A people who, as you know, holds for Your Majesties and all the Spanish Court great affection.

An affection which is extended towards Their Royal Highnesses the Princes of Asturias, whom I hope will frequently visit my country and become closely acquainted with the people and culture of Portugal. People to whom HRH the Count of Barcelona would refer, in a manner which is still touching to us, that their “greater merit is the dignity which they show in today’s world, their spiritual values and strong personality”.

In our visit to Spain, my wife and I will have the opportunity of visiting Asturias. It will be the first Spanish Community that I will visit as President of the Portuguese Republic. If it be true that this is where the largest Portuguese investment in Spanish territory is located today, I will not hide that this decision began taking form when, one day before I took office I received, in Lisbon, the visit of HRH Prince Felipe who personally gave me Your Majesty’s invitation. Visiting Asturias would be a visit to the Principality of His Royal Highness and to the birthplace of Princess Letizia. And to underline, once more, the strength and the image of the affections which unite our two countries and which are the most important asset of our bilateral relationship.

Majesties

The seventies of the past century will remain in the History of our two countries as a period of democratic transition and of a renewed opening to Europe and the world.

The History of that period and of much that Spain prospered since then will for ever be linked to the name and the figure of Your Majesty. My generation will always remember the moment when Your Majesty’s speech guaranteed to Spain the consolidation of its young democracy, in peace and in tolerance. All of us, whether older or younger are well aware how Your Majesty’s actions and statecraft have helped Spain to assert itself as a world economic and political power.

The consolidation of democracy in Spain and Portugal and our simultaneous adhesion to the European Union were landmarks which result in a profound change in our bilateral relationship.

From earlier mistrust, motivated above all by lack of mutual knowledge – the image of two neighbouring countries with their backs turned is well known – we went on to a permanent relationship of dialogue and cooperation, and towards the defence of common interests.

The Portuguese-Spanish summits commenced in 1986, the sole stage for dialogue, agreement in postures and promotion of common interests. Even today our bilateral relationship is largely based on these high level Summits, which permitted that dialogue and cooperation stretched to all the diverse sectors of public and private actions.

From culture to science and to research, from tourism to cross border cooperation, from the management of the hydro resources to cooperation in matters of energy, from intense trade to a large volume of investment, Portugal and Spain are linked today by a close set of means for cooperation and dialogue, as well as common projects and interests, which are reflected with mutual advantage, in the agreement of postures in the international institutions to which we belong, particularly the European Union and the Atlantic Alliance.

Your Majesty yourself, due to your profound knowledge of Portugal and the Portuguese, greatly contributed for this strengthened level of confidence and understanding. I know, through personal experience, how determinant was Your Majesty’s intervention – away from the limelight, as the demanded by the situation – in order that several and sensitive difficulties could be overcome.

We have today two neighbouring countries that learnt how to know and respect each other and which have built an important web of interdependencies.

Without wanting to stretch myself in statistics or to list a detailed number of initiatives, I believe it important to emphasize that Spain is today the main customer and supplier of Portugal, and is an important investor in my country. On the other hand, Spain is one of the main destinations of Portuguese investment abroad, having absorbed, in 2005, more than 25% of our direct investment. Last year Spain exported to Portugal more than it did to the whole of the American Continent, and more than treble of what it exported to all the countries included in the enlargement. With one eighth of Germany’s population, Portugal has an almost equivalent share of Spain’s export tariff as that country.

In the cultural field, extraordinary indicators are being added to the innumerable successive initiatives. In the last 25 years, more works of Portuguese authors were translated in Spain than in five centuries of history. I underline, as well, due to its strategic value, the opening, last year, of the Centre for Portuguese Language in Madrid, and the enormous expansion of Portuguese teaching in Spain, and that of Spanish, in Portugal.

There is dynamic growth in cooperation in the areas of Education and Research and Technological Innovation, as ascertained in the partnership of the Braga Institute of Technology. I believe, moreover, that the development of the potential of joint projects in this area is only in its beginning stages, and it is imperative that, through enterprises, Universities and Research Centres, partnerships are promoted to better prepare our countries for the challenge of global competitiveness.

This belief resulted in my having invited, to join my retinue, young scientists and entrepreneurs in the areas of technological innovation and biotechnology. I do not doubt that, even those who closely accompany the evolution of Portuguese society will be surprised at the excellence of the work of these youths and at the international recognition they enjoy. I will be taking part in a seminar tomorrow, promoted by COTEC of Portugal and Spain, dedicated precisely to the Lusitanian-Spanish cooperation in the field of scientific and technological innovation.

I believe that the following assertion, made in the V Encounter of the Hispano-Lusitanian Forum, in 2004, is still valid: “The relations between Spain and Portugal are currently being developed at a rate difficult to imagine only a few years ago. The current situation permits public administrations, private entities and individuals to tighten links and undertake cooperating initiatives in a climate of mutual respect, understanding and simplicity”.

Majesties,

The unquestionable advantages that Portugal and Spain obtained when joining the European Union are frequently mentioned.

But it should also be underlined that Portugal and Spain’s adhesion is a very important added value for Europe.

The European foreign policy benefited from our acquaintance and privileged relationships with a large number of countries spread around five continents. The relations with Africa, with Latin America – Portugal hosted the first EU-Mercosul ministerial meeting – with Asia – it was during the Portuguese presidency that, for example, the EU-India Summits commenced, - and with the Mediterranean – vide the Barcelona Procedure – gained a totally new dimension. Our contribution towards fundamental initiatives, such as the Lisbon Agenda, is a proof of the credibility of our exertion in the integration procedure.

Important challenges are currently facing our two countries, Europe and the world.

I believe that Portugal and Spain, due to their past, to the network of relationships they had the discernment to create, have greater responsibilities in seeking for a better understanding between peoples. Finding an effective answer to issues such as international terrorism or illegal immigration must constitute one of our common priorities.

Concern with aid to development has been a permanent feature of Portuguese foreign policy. Only economic development can hinder the peoples of those “forgotten by History” from seeking in our countries the solution for a better future. Portugal is, today, one of the greater per capita contributors in the aid to development, through official aid and contributions from the civil society.

Within the picture of insecurity that international terrorism has promoted, we retain the image of the dignity of the Spaniards when, in the face of the tragedy of March 11, and independently from any political connotation, they told the world all that had to de said: the pain, the shock, the indignation, but also the indefectible belief in the values of peace, tolerance and democracy. Nothing justifies terror and nothing justifies giving way to blackmail.

Tomorrow, after a visit to the Madrid Mayoralty, my wife and I will go to the Retiro, to pay our homage, and also that of the people of Portugal, to the memory of those who paid with their lives, in Spain, as in many other corners of the world, the price of our choice of tolerance, dialogue and human dignity, against terror and barbarism.

Majesties

Today, nothing that happens in Portugal is irrelevant for Spain, and nothing that happens in Spain is irrelevant for Portugal. This is the reality of our relationship. This reality must be used to guarantee for the future a closer and ever more fruitful cooperation, for the good of both the peoples and the countries.

Permit me to toast the health and happiness of Your Majesty and Her Majesty Queen Sofia, and to the excellence of the relations between our two countries. That this should always constitute a motive of pride for both peoples and an example for other Nations.

Thank you very much.