This Sunday, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guinea-Bissau criticized the “unflattering” statements made by the executive secretary of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) about that Member State, without hearing him, and promised reactions.
Speaking to Lusa in Lisbon, Carlos Pinto Pereira assured that Guinea-Bissau is “more than prepared to assume the presidency of the CPLP” in July 2025, assured that the country will hold “transparent and free” legislative elections and that its “(electoral) results will be respected”.
Therefore, in his opinion “there is no concern” regarding the situation in Guinea-Bissau, as the executive secretary of the CPLP said last week.
“The executive secretary is the one who is causing us some concern, when, in a relatively short time, he speaks out twice in terms that are not strictly at all positive” for Guinea-Bissau, he stated. And “without listening to the Member State in question”, he stressed.
The Guinean MNE reacted thus to the statements made by the Executive Secretary of the CPLP at the end of the week, in an interview with Lusa, in which he said that the CPLP is following the situation in Guinea-Bissau, one of its nine member states, with “some concern”. and the one who should assume the rotating presidency in 2025, following the São Tomé presidency.
“We follow developments in Guinea-Bissau with some concern, but it is a fundamental principle of the CPLP not to interfere in the internal affairs of each Member State”, stated Zacarias da Costa.
“(However), we are sure that Guineans will know how to get out of this less good situation. The elections have already been announced by the President of the Republic, for November 24th, and naturally we hope that everything goes normally”, he also said.
What counts at this moment for the executive secretariat is that there is a decision from the last Summit of Heads of State and Government, which took place in 2023 in São Tomé and Príncipe, that the next formal high-level meeting of the organization will be in Guinea-Bissau , and which even has dates.
“All meetings will take place from the 14th to the 18th of July, so it will be the 18th Summit, the 17th the Council of Ministers, the 16th the Permanent Concertation Committee (meeting of ambassadors representing the Member States in Lisbon) and before that the meetings of focal points of cooperation”, he highlighted.
But, when asked whether or not this decision could change, if the elections in the country do not go as expected and the political scenario in Guinea-Bissau does not improve, Zacarias da Costa replied: “obviously we also hope that the situation will normalize, so that that the country can assume the presidency of the organization for the 2025-2027 biennium”.
However, “reversing the decision or not” is up to the Member States, he highlighted, adding that he was “sure that the Heads of State and Government will monitor the situation very closely”.
At this moment, what there is is “a decision, a date and a commitment by a country, and not by a President or a Prime Minister, to host the summit in 2025 (…) and also to direct the organization in biennium 2025-2027”, he reiterated.
“We have a political body (in the CPLP), which is the Council of Ministers (CM), which is currently chaired by São Tomé and Príncipe, and, as far as I know, it has not consulted or listened to anyone. So I am surprised that it is the (executive) secretariat to do so and I wonder with what legitimacy it takes on these types of issues without listening to anyone”, highlighted this Sunday the MNE of Guinea-Bissau.
Therefore, “we will have to at some point question this position of the executive secretary”, he added.
“In particular, I will raise the issue at the next meeting of the Council of Ministers”, said the head of Guinean diplomacy.
The minister assured that Guinea-Bissau is more than prepared to assume the presidency of the CPLP and “has the desire to do so. That is why he expressed his availability at the summit (of Heads of State and Government) in São Tomé and Príncipe and was established since then that the next presidency would be from Guinea-Bissau.”
According to Carlos Pinto Pereira, the Guinean government is already working internally in the various commissions in operation so that in July of next year the usual CPLP Council of Ministers will be held and “then, depending on the decision of the Heads of State, it will be held the next summit.
And “if the heads of state agree, the next summit will be on July 18th”, after the CM which will be on the 17th.
“If the next government, other than this one, (after the elections) in November has to lead this process within the framework of the CPLP, there is no problem. We can start the process and have it completed by someone else”, he stressed.
The Guinean President, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, scheduled early legislative elections for the next 24th of November, after having dissolved parliament, in December 2023, outside the constitutional deadlines, and formed a Government of presidential initiative.
Source: www.cmjornal.pt
