A CPLP Social Security agreement approved in 2015, which can simplify obtaining pensions for those who emigrated from one member state of the community to another, needs to be ratified by one more country to come into force.
According to the executive secretary of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP), Zacarias da Costa, until now only “Portugal and East Timor have already ratified it” the document.
It is necessary that at least “one more Member State [ratifique] so that the convention can come into force.”added Zacarias da Costa, in statements to Lusa, who mentioned “the effort” that the countries of the community and the executive secretariat have made, “not only to ratify, but also to implement, (…) the agreements they have concluded in the last ten or twenty years” by the Member States.
In the São Tomé presidency of the organization (which assumed the rotating leadership of the organization in August 2023), “we are working so that the Member States, or at least a reasonable number, can quickly ratify the multilateral Social Security agreement” , he stressed. .
This document, he maintained, is “an important complement to the Mobility Agreement.”
“It is not only important that the citizens of our countries be able to move freely within the community space, It is also necessary to work in other areas, such as Social Security.”, he argued, considering that also in the economic area, a legal framework must be developed for the protection of investments and an agreement between Member States to avoid double taxation, among other measures.
To accelerate the implementation of the Social Security agreement, the last Council of Ministers of the CPLP, held in July in Sao Tome and Principe, approved a resolution to develop efforts in the member states of the community for its ratification.
This resolution determines that “efforts will be made to complete the internal ratification procedures” of the agreement and “promote its entry into force and implementation” and recalls the decision adopted at an extraordinary meeting of Ministers of Labor and Social Affairs of the CPLP, on the 19th. of April. 2024, to hold a technical meeting “to finalize the text of the Administrative Agreement of the Multilateral Social Security Agreement.”
The CPLP Social Security Agreement It was approved by the Member States of the CPLP on July 24, 2015and defines the conditions for its entry into force.
“This Convention will enter into force on the first day of the month following the date on which three States Parties have deposited at the headquarters of the CPLP, before its Executive Secretariat, the respective instruments of approval, ratification or acceptance,” it states. .
According to the text of the agreement, it applies to people who “have been bound by the legislation of one or more States Parties, and who are nationals of said States, as well as their family members or dependents, the latter regardless of their nationality.” ”, that is, also to the dependent children or parents of the citizen who seeks to retire through this agreement.
It also applies “to benefits related to eventualities of disability, old age and death, provided for in the legislation of the States Parties, designated in the Administrative Agreement.”
Portugal published, on August 23, 2023, the convention in the Diário da República.
“The Multilateral Agreement aims to develop social protection policies and strengthen cooperation between the signatory Member States of their social security systems, taking into account the existing similarities and the growing labor mobility, as a result of the deepening of economic and the construction of citizenship in the CPLP Space”, reads the published text.
Source: Observadora
