Portugal is willing to convert CPLP member states’ debt into support for the environmental transition, as is the case with Cabo Verde, the Portuguese prime minister said on Sunday at the summit of the Community of Portuguese-Language Countries (CPLP).
Speaking during the restricted session of the 14th conference of the Portuguese-language organisation, which is taking place today in Sao Tome, António Costa said that Portugal was available to “work with each of the CPLP member states to also convert debt into an investment fund for the environment, energy, water, recycling, in order to speed up this transition”.
The starting point for this proposal is to work “on the basis of a pilot project” that Portugal has started with Cabo Verde: the “creation of the Climate and Environment Fund”, which will be formally approved by Praia in October, he explained.
In this project, “Portugal is committed to converting Cabo Verde’s debt into investment in environmental transformation”.
The issue of the oceans, at first level, should be the main priority in the CPLP’s sustainability theme during Sao Tome and Príncipe’s chairmanship of the organisation, followed by the associated economic issues, “agriculture and fisheries” and “this should be another dimension of a great challenge”.
In his speech, António Costa touched on the mobility agreement, which has been in force since the beginning of the year, admitting that “a greater effort is needed to continue removing barriers”.
In Portugal’s case, “the general social security agreement was published last week, which is another element of the mobility agreement to guarantee social security rights between all our states,” said the government official, who also praised Malabo’s efforts in its integration process into the organisation.
“We are getting closer to Equatorial Guinea, and I would like to emphasise the entry into force of the law that abolished the death penalty in Equatorial Guinea,” he said in a reference to the most recent CPLP country.
The CPLP, which includes Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, Sao Tome and Príncipe and Timor-Leste, is holding its 14th conference of heads of state and government in Sao Tome and Príncipe on Sunday, under the slogan “Youth and Sustainability”.
Lusa
