Portugal Geopolitics

By | December 25, 2021

Portugal is a country located at the western end of the European continent, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by virtue of its strategic position it became a great colonial power with possessions in Latin America, Africa and southern and eastern Asia. From the nineteenth century, with the granting of independence to Brazil (1822) and above all with the granting of independence to the colonies from the 1970s, Portugal’s extra-European projection began to shrink. It was in that decade that the last Portuguese colonies – Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and East Timor (which, however, would have been occupied by Indonesia) – gained independence through a less peaceful path of decolonization than that of other countries. submitted to the European powers.

Currently, the main lines of foreign policy are represented by European integration and relations with the former overseas colonies. At the EU level, Spain is the largest export market and the main investor in the country. Relations with France are also good, which also serve to counterbalance the Spanish supremacy in the western Mediterranean. Lisbon signed the Schengen agreements in 1991, actively participates in the foreign policy of the European Union (Eu), supports enlargement to Turkey, is in the euro zone and, during its presidency at the Council of the Euin 2007, it welcomed the signing of the Union Reform Treaty, known as the Lisbon Treaty. In the same year, Portugal hosted the annual summit between the European Union and Africa.

The concentration of attention on the Eu area did not take place at the expense of maintaining good relations with overseas countries. Portugal has a privileged relationship with Brazil, participated in the peacekeeping mission in Angola in the 1990s and continues to cooperate with the former colony. He also promoted East Timor’s path to independence from Indonesia and participated in the EU mission in Guinea Bissau. Finally, the country is one of the founding members of the community of Lusophone countries, created in 1996 together with the former colonies in order to promote the Portuguese language and culture and deepen political, economic and social cooperation. For Portugal government and politics, please check a2zgov.com.

Transatlantic relations are also of considerable importance for Portugal. Relations with U know are traditionally good: the Azores archipelago is home to a US military base. Furthermore, Portugal was one of the founding members of NATO at the invitation of the United Statesin 1949. Since the 1990s, Portugal has also initiated greater cooperation, especially political, with the Maghreb and is a promoter of integration between the two shores of the Mediterranean through the Union for the Mediterranean. The proximity of the archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira, which belong to Portugal, increases the interest in the protection of the exclusive economic zone near the Atlantic coast and in the protection of the marine environment. Moreover, thanks to its position and ties with Brazil and Angola, Portugal exerts its influence in the South Atlantic, crossed by important sea routes and rich in strategic resources, starting with the oil of the countries bordering the Gulf of Guinea.

The Portuguese republic was born in 1910, following the assassination of King Charles I. With the military revolt of 1926, the dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar began, who became prime minister in 1932 and remained in power until 1968. After the government of Marcelo Caetano, in 1974 there was a coup with broad popular support (the so-called Carnation Revolution), which led to the end of the dictatorship and a brief government of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP). During this period, many sectors of the economy were nationalized and the process of decolonization accelerated. In 1975 a moderate executive was established formed by the Socialist Party (P s) and the People’s Democratic Party (P pd, now Psd) and, in 1976, the new Constitution was adopted.

The current political scene is dominated by the PSD and the PS. These two groups competed in the latest legislative elections, which were held on 4 October 2015 and saw a substantial draw. The conservative coalition led by the PSD obtained a relative majority and could potentially have created a minority executive; however, in the absence of parliamentary confidence, there has been an institutional stalemate. Indeed, in Portugal the government can also be a minority, as long as it does not receive a vote of no confidence from the parliamentary majority. At that point the PSD would have had as its only alternative the formation of a coalition government with the Portugals, which however confirmed its unavailability. What prevented the hypothesis of a coalition government between conservatives and socialists was above all the existing distances in the direction of economic and financial policy. While the outgoing premier, the conservative Pedro Passos Coelho, wanted on line austerity promoted since 2011 to try to heal the lifeless Portuguese speakers, the left team led by the secretary of P sAntónio Costa would tend to be more in favor of an expansion of public spending in favor of the less well-off classes. The institutional stalemate was overcome in November 2015, after Costa received the mandate to form a center-left government from President Cavaco Silva and parliament voted to trust the new executive.

Portugal Geopolitics