The President of the Republic begins his trip to Malta to participate in the 17th meeting of Heads of State of the Arraiolos Group, which takes place this Thursday, and meets today with his Polish counterpart.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa is expected to arrive in Valletta at the end of the afternoon, after giving the traditional speech at the solemn session of the 112th anniversary of the founding of the Republic, in the Praça do Município, in Lisbon, and being present at the gardens of the Palacio de Belém, which will be open to the public for the celebration of October 5.
The Portuguese head of state should arrive in Malta at 5:45 p.m. (4:45 p.m. in Lisbon) and, shortly after, he will hold a bilateral meeting with the president of the Republic of Poland, Andrzej Duda.
The two already met in Braga, at the beginning of June, for a two-hour meeting, in which “the situation in Europe” was discussed, according to a note released at the time on the website of the Presidency of the Republic.
On that occasion, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa declined to detail the issues discussed, only saying that the meeting “went extremely well” and that the Polish president reiterated his invitation to visit Poland, if possible before the summer, but that it had not yet been given. bill. .
After this meeting, the President of the Republic will participate in an informal dinner offered by the President of Malta, George Vella, in honor of the Heads of State present in Valletta.
During the trip to Malta, which will last until Friday, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa will also hold bilateral meetings with his Italian and German counterparts, in addition to the host President.
This year the meeting of the Arraiolos Group takes place at the Palacio de Congresos del Mediterráneo, in Valletta, on Thursday, throughout the day.
In addition to taking place in a context of war in Europe, after the military offensive launched at the end of February by Russia and which in recent days culminated in a proclamation of the annexation of Ukrainian territories by that country (already considered illegal by several countries) , including Portugal), this informal meeting of non-executive presidents takes place a week and a half after the legislative elections in Italy, with the victory of a right-wing and far-right coalition.
The Arraiolos Group annually brings together non-executive presidents of various member states of the European Union and was an initiative launched by Jorge Sampaio, when he was president of the Republic.
In 2003, the then Portuguese head of state, who died last year, promoted a meeting in the Alentejo town of Arraiolos to discuss the future of the European Union with a group of presidents of the Republic with powers similar to his.
In recent years, the Arraiolos Group has brought together heads of state from 15 EU countries (it started with six in 2003): Italy, Bulgaria, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Croatia, Latvia, Hungary, Malta, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia and Finland.
This year Slovakia will attend the meeting for the first time, whose president, Zuzana Caputova, has expressed the intention that her country join this group.
For agenda reasons, the presidents of Austria and Finland will not be in Malta, so 14 heads of state will participate in Thursday’s meeting.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who became President of the Republic in March 2016, was present at the 12th meeting, which took place that year in Bulgaria, at the 13th in Malta, in 2017, at the 14th in Latvia, at the 15th in Greece and 16 in Italy.
It has already been decided that next year’s meeting of the Arraiolos Group, in its 18th edition, will take place in Portugal, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the initiative, and that of 2024 in Poland
Source: Observadora
