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

Majesty,
Presidents,
Prime Ministers,
Ministers,
Notable Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I warmly welcome you, dear friends, on behalf of Portugal and the Portuguese. It is with great satisfaction that Portugal welcomes this XIX Iberian American Summit. We sincerely hope that you feel, amongst us, as if you were at home, and that you leave with the best recollections.

Eighteen years past, I well recall the historic Summit of Guadalajara, in Mexico, in which I took part as Prime Minister of my country. It was there that we took the decision to create the Iberian American Conference, defined as “a tool of unity and promotion of development, based on dialogue, cooperation and solidarity amongst Peoples”.

At the moment when we begin our XIX Summit, it is time to value the long path we have treaded since then and how much we have managed to achieve. The Iberian American Conference is, today, a live reality which asserts itself in multiple structures of dialogue and cooperation at the most diversified levels of our Administrations, which involves Parliaments and musters the civil society.

Portugal has, since the beginning, contributed with its entire endeavour towards the promotion and consolidation of the Iberian American dialogue, due to always having recognized a strategic value in it. A strategic value that daily becomes more in evidence.

The recognition is unanimous today that the world is faced with challenges which are eminently global. As it is unquestionable that the answers to these challenges, to be effective, must also be global. And we will certainly not obtain global answers without dialogue and coordination amongst States.

A structure such as the Iberian American Conference represents, in this context, a clear added value for all its members. It is our duty, on behalf of the future we crave for our peoples, to take advantage from its enormous potential.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Our common objective is clear: through dialogue, exchange of experiences, coordination of efforts, linking of situations and, whenever justified and possible, through combined actions in the international stage, promote the well being and the economic, social and cultural development of our peoples.
The Iberian American Conference would not have been born if it had not been evident, since the very start, that there is an historic heritage and a set of values which are common to all of us. But it would never have survived had we not known how to assume, naturally, that this common matrix combines with the diversity resulting from the circumstances proper to each of our peoples.

We know that affinities, however real and deep they may be, do not always lead to uniform positions, as well as that the sharing of ideas is not necessarily synonymous with the unconditional adherence to similar policies. The Iberian American Community respects the difference, learns and enriches itself with it.

But we are also aware that it is in our common interest to value and take advantage of everything that links us, of which there is much.

Throughout the several Summits which I have attended, it was always this unity which most impressed me. It allowed me to become better acquainted with each of the countries which, with Portugal, share this space, and absorb teachings which marked my view of the issues and my understanding of the problems which we are facing.

Our Community is a space which belongs to all of us, a space which recognizes its enormous wealth from the plural participation of political and social agents, academicians and entrepreneurs.

Instances of these were the Parliamentary, Civic, Local Authority and Entrepreneurial Forums, as well as all the groups and initiatives which, throughout this year, debated topics which mark our times and, in particular, that which the Portuguese Presidency elected for its mandate: Innovation and Knowledge.

The choice of Innovation and Knowledge as a topic of our Presidency reflects the relevance these issues have in the definition of any development policy and the undeniable weight they assume in a world increasingly interrelated and competitive.

A world which has been facing an economic and financial crisis with grievous social consequences, which can only truly be overcome if we know how to glean from it all that it can teach us. This implies our being capable of finding a development model which reconciles freedom, democracy and market economy with an effective defence of ethical values and a firm presence of social concerns. A development model which, in addition to the above, views the Planet with the respect imposed by the responsibility which we all have before the coming generations.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is with full confidence in the future of our Community and this privileged space of cooperation and dialogue amongst Nations that I declare open the XIX Iberian American Summit of Heads of State and of Government.