Within the framework of “Feel Portugal”, until March 28, Montenegro will tour five European cities with the aim of “contacting with the local reality” and with the Portuguese communities.
The president of the PSD, Luís Montenegro, begins this Wednesday in Brussels another edition of the initiative “Feel Portugal”, this month dedicated to the Portuguese communities in several European countries.
EITHER tour will last until March 28 and includes, in addition to the capital of Belgium, visits to Dusseldorf (Germany), Luxembourg, Paris and Geneva (Switzerland).
This will be the seventh edition of the “Feel Portugal” initiative, a bet made by Luís Montenegro at the 40th PSD Congress to spend one week a month in the different districts of the country, and which also included visits to the Portuguese diaspora.
“Portuguese communities in Europe are one of the most important strategic assets that contribute to the affirmation of our identity, culture and language. The vast majority of Portuguese emigrants maintain historical, cultural, social and economic ties with Portugal”, says the PSD, in a statement, noting the objective of this week “contact with the local reality and dialogue with the Portuguese of the diaspora, descendants of Portuguese, families and institutions”.
The Montenegro program in Brussels starts with a lunch with PSD members in the European Parliament, and includes meetings with the president of this institution, the Maltese politician Roberta Metsola, and with the president of the European People’s Party (EPP), the German Manfred Weber. ending the day with a work session with local militants of the PSD.
On Thursday, the day the European Council begins in Brussels, the president of the PSD participates in the morning in the traditional EPP summit and then he meets with the president of the European Commission, the German Úrsula Von der Leyen.
From Brussels, Montenegro leaves for a tribute at the Portuguese military cemetery in Richebourg (France), where around 1,800 Portuguese soldiers killed in the First World War are buried and, that same day, he will have dinner with PSD Germany militants in Dusseldorf.
On Friday, already in Luxembourg, the president of the PSD will visit a construction company, meet with local militants and have dinner with representatives of the Social Christian Party (CSV), making an intervention in the Congress of this party on Saturday, followed by Paris.
Luís Montenegro’s agenda for Sunday in Paris includes participation in a meeting with the structures of PSD Europe, a meeting with the councilors of the Portuguese communities elected by France and a dinner with businessmen from the Franco-Portuguese Chamber of Commerce, with whom he will attend the football match between the Portuguese and Luxembourg teams.
On Monday the 27th, the president of the PSD will visit the Portuguese consulate in Paris, a Portuguese company in the ambulance area —“Les Dauphins”—, the Portuguese immigration memorial and will be received at the Dourdan Chamber, in the Parisian region, chaired by by a Portuguese, Paolo de Carvalho.
The last day of Luís Montenegro’s trip, the 28th, he will spend in Geneva, where he will hold, by videoconference, meetings of the Permanent Commission of the PSD (hard core of the leadership) and of the Acreditar Movement (which prepares the party’s electoral program). , ending with a meeting and dinner with PSD-Switzerland militants.
In the last legislative elections, in January 2022, the PSD did not elect any deputy for Europe (the two parliamentarians went to the PS, contrary to the tie for mandates recorded in 2019), after the Constitutional Court ordered a repeat of the vote in this circle (in the first count, the Social Democrats had removed one deputy and the Socialists had the other ).
On that occasion, more than 157,000 votes cast by voters from the circle of Europe were annulled because, during the scrutiny, valid votes were mixed with invalid votes, not accompanied by a copy of the identity document, as required by law.
Recently, the PSD presented a bill —approved in the specialty and which will now be discussed in the specialty in parliament— to test non-face-to-face electronic voting for residents abroad in the European elections next year (which, being a pilot project, would not exempt the exercise of voting in person).
The PSD diploma also aims to broaden the possibility for emigrants to vote by correspondence in the presidential and European elections, as is already the case in the legislative ones.
Source: Observadora
