Cape Verde’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Victor Borges, and his Portuguese counterpart Freitas do Amaral will formalize a work group aimed at moving towards a special partnership between Cape Verde and the European Union. The work group, created by the Cape Verdean and Portuguese governments, will be officially constituted Friday in Portuguese capital Lisbon.

The work group for the special partnership with the European Union has as its main mission the establishment of an agenda for the process that will lead to this partnership. The work group will also advise Praia regarding the steps that should be taken in the matter.

The Cape Verdean side of the work group is made up of Fernando Wahnon Ferreira, Cape Verde’s permanent representative to the European Union, António Morais Fernandes, a Foreign Ministry aide, and António Nascimento, an aide to the State Secretary of Foreign Affairs.

The group created by the Cape Verdean and Portuguese governments is but one of the focal points established in Europe. Praia enjoys support from various European states, including Luxembourg, as well as from civil organizations, such as the European Union Ultra-Peripheral Region Municipal Platform, which will meet in March on the island of Sal. The National Association of Cape Verdean Municipalities is already a full-fledged member of the Platform.

Cape Verde also counts support within the European Parliament itself, particularly from a number of Portuguese europarliamentarian. Indeed, a proposal by José Ribeiro de Castro, president of the Popular Party and a representative in the European Parliament, led to the extension of the Parliament’s European Neighbor Policy “to the island states of the Atlantic that neighbor the European Union’s ultra-peripheral regions adjacent to the European continent, in cases in which particular issues of geographic proximity, historical and cultural affinity and mutual security prove to be relevant.”

The same Portuguese europarliamentarian raised the awareness of the European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel, regarding the need to support the forum European Union / Cape Verde: the challenges of the future,” which Luxembourg has offered to host and which will take place in March immediately following the swearing in of Cape Verde’s new government, to be led by current Prime Minister José Maria Neves.

Source a semana