The Portuguese government on Thursday approved the draft agreement for mobility in the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), a statement from the council of ministers meeting said.
“The proposal, to be submitted to parliament, of the Agreement on Mobility between the member states of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), signed in Luanda on 17 July 2021, was approved,” the statement said.
The statement added that the agreement allows for the establishment of a framework of cooperation on the mobility of citizens of the member states of the CPLP and between those states through a flexible and variable system that considers each state’s particularities.
So far, Cabo Verde and Sao Tome and Principe have only ratified the proposal for mobility in the CPLP.
The heads of state and government of the CPLP, meeting on 17 July in Luanda, approved the Agreement on Mobility within the community.
The resolution of the cabinet meeting approved at the 13th summit of the organisation reaffirms that mobility is a central design for the community, for its importance to the increase and consolidation of relations of cooperation and friendship between member states of the CPLP and between their peoples, and its contribution to bringing the community closer to its citizens.
The leaders highlighted the importance of mobility in sectors such as tourism, culture, education, science and innovation, and in the economic-business area and its role in the member states’ sustainable development.
In addition, they committed themselves to promote the necessary steps to welcome, as soon as possible, the Agreement on Mobility in their respective legal systems and to contribute to the creation of legal and institutional conditions for the progressive and orderly increase of mobility in the CPLP of all citizens of the member states.
The 13th Conference of Heads of State and Government of the CPLP, in which Angola assumed the presidency, was marked by the signing of this agreement and a new priority: strengthening economic relations.
At the request of Angola, this summit, which was due to be held in 2020, was postponed to July 2021 due to the pandemic, and the outgoing Cape Verdean presidency agreed to extend its two-year mandate for another year.
The draft agreement on mobility establishes a framework for cooperation between all member states flexibly and variably and, in practice, covers any citizen.
Member states are offered a range of solutions enabling them to take on “mobility commitments in a progressive manner and with different levels of integration,” taking account of their internal specificities in their political, social and administrative dimensions.
In this context, they have the freedom to choose the mobility modalities, the categories of persons covered, and the Community countries with which they wish to establish partnerships, according to the proposal to which Lusa had access.
The proposal defines that mobility in the CPLP covers holders of diplomatic, official, special and service passports and ordinary passports.
The agreement also provides for holders of ordinary passports to be subdivided into groups according to the activities they carry out, namely professors, researchers, businessmen, cultural agents, artists, sportspeople and representatives of the media, writers, musicians, promoters and organisers of cultural and sporting events, and students.
The issue of facilitating movement has been debated in the CPLP for about two decades. Still, it got a bigger boost with a more concrete proposal presented by Portugal at the Brasília summit in 2016 and has become the priority of Cabo Verde’s rotating presidency of the organisation over the past three years.
Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, Sao Tome and Principe and East Timor are the nine member states of the CPLP.
LUSA
