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Communiqué

1. The President of the Republic decided today to send back to Parliament its Decree No. 160/X, which approves the structural organization of the National Republican Guard, requesting that it be reappraised.

2. The President of the Republic underlines “how advisable it would be that sensitive matters in the areas of national defense and security”, as is the case with Decree No. 160/X, “were to be the object of a total political and juridical parliamentary consensus”.

The President of the Republic believes that the ranking as a general of the Commanding Officer of the National Republican Guard (GNR) and creating a professional sub-category of generals specific to the GNR, which could be accessed with less demanding qualifications than those required to attain the rank of general in the Armed Forces, are changes that “do not benefit the required complementariness between the Armed Forces and the National Republican Guard, and would contend with the balance and coherency currently existing between both forces and their relationship, and could negatively affect the stability and cohesion of the military institution which the President of the Republic is duty bound to maintain, equally considering the inherency of his functions as Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces”.

The President of the Republic also believes that, should the new GNR Coastal Controlling Unit assume missions currently committed to the Portuguese Navy, the interconnection between the two organizations should at least be the object of a regulatory decree and not, as foreseen, an ordinance.

3. The Message that the President of the Republic addressed to Parliament, in the terms of §1 of article No. 136 of the Constitution, is disclosed in this same official site of the Presidency of the Republic, in www.presidencia.pt.

Click here to read the full text of the message the President of the Republic addressed to Parliament