Welcome to the Official page of the Presidency of the Portuguese Republic

We are very pleased, and simultaneously greatly honoured to receive Your Majesties in Portugal, in this first round of Presentation Visits. Be very welcome.

We view in this Visit the renewed confirmation of the steadiness and deepness of the relations between our two countries, neighbours and friends.

Further, the presence of Your Majesties amongst us also has a very singular meaning, considering the care and friendship that Portugal dedicates to the Royal Family.

Your Majesty’s proclamation as King is a determining moment for your Country and embodies a generational renewal that will certainly be a marker in the History of Spain.

Your Majesties are well acquainted with Portugal. I have excellent recollections of the Official Visit you held here in May 2012, such as my Wife and I recall the warm hospitality with which we were always received in Spain.

Portugal and Spain are nowadays enjoying a relationship that is expressed in the framework of a bilateral cooperation that was never so vast and intense and which is gaining increased vitality in the most varied sectors of our civil societies.

Four decades ago, our countries initiated a period of democratic transition, and since then went through great changes. Almost three decades ago we joined, simultaneously, the European project. These paths deeply determined what each of our countries is today, as well as the characteristics of our relationship.

The approach and the impulse recorded in the last few years by our institutions, entrepreneurs, young people, cultural and scientific bodies, universities and social partners is nowadays a fully secured reality.

There are many material examples of this cooperation and the XXVII Luso-Spanish Summit in the past month of June demonstrated it perfectly, with the diversity of themes and the enterprising discussions.

The fields of bilateral cooperation are ever more numerous, from research to science and culture, to transport, to the management of hydro resources and energy issues. I equally register the level of collaboration between our border areas, an important feature in relations between neighbours, which contributes to the development of the regions concerned.

As a result of the intensity and strategic weight of our relationship the number of topics not being approached within the Luso-Spanish relations is indeed very few.

In terms of trade, Spain is today the first customer for and supplier of Portuguese goods. It also was, in the two more recent years, the prime external investor and one of the main receivers of Portuguese external investment.

In terms of tourism, Spain is the main issuing market for tourists to Portugal and a favoured destination for the Portuguese. This data is revealing of the deep bonds which exist between our two economies.

Majesties,
Portugal and Spain are States with a universal calling. In addition to Europe, we share other areas: the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, Africa and, naturally, the Iberian American community.

The role that, in latter years, Your Majesty has developed in the deepening of the Iberian-American relationship and in promoting the dynamics of the Latin-American civil societies portends an especially promising reign, at a moment when our Conference is in a process of deep renovation.

The good understanding between our two countries, in addition to the obvious bilateral advantages, must be used to strengthen our position and to take advantage of our potential, whether within the European Union, or in other relevant thresholds and forums, notwithstanding differing motivations that may exist with respect to several specific issues or dossiers.

The truth is that today – and very much due to the legacy of Their Majesties King D. Juan Carlos and Queen D. Sofia – we are better acquainted and work much better in joint terms. Not everything has, of course, been yet achieved. We can go further in our cooperation and in our coordination. As far as we are concerned we will keep up the ambition and the drive in the building of a future of more than ever close and fruitful relations.

It is in this spirit that I ask you all to join me in a toast to the health and happiness of Their Majesties, to the everlasting success of the reign that is now commencing, to the prosperity of the friendly people of Spain and to the future of the relations between both our countries.