The President of the Republic of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilve, decorated President Aníbal Cavaco Silva with the Grand Collar of the Order of the Land of the Virgin Mary, during a ceremony which was held in the Estonian Permanent Mission to the United Nations, in New York.

The decoration was attributed as a sign of gratitude for Portugal’s actions, and personally for those of the President of the Republic who, in 1987, as Prime Minister, aided in denying the recognition of the annexation of that country by the then Soviet Union, which later made possible the restoration of Estonia’s independence.