The Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, opens this Wednesday in Faro, in the Algarve, his interlocutor at the Iberian summits: the prime minister and leader of the center-right in Portugal, Luís Montenegro. Since arriving at La Moncloa in 2018, Sánchez participated in five bilateral meetings with the socialist António Costa. Relations between the two were fluid and cordial.. Costa supported the Spaniard to lead the Socialist International and Sánchez defended the Portuguese’s candidacy to preside over the European Council, which he will take office at the end of the year. In Brussels they went hand in hand to obtain benefits for the peninsula in energy matters or adopt palliative policies during the pandemic.
The relationship that Sánchez and Montenegro will now have to build remains to be seen, although on both sides they are making an effort to highlight the good moment of relations and the multiple common interests to defend in the European Commission. For Portugal, its next-door neighbor is its best client as the recipient of a fifth of Portuguese exports, while Spain has more trade with Portugal than with all of Latin America. Sources from the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs highlight that relations with Spain are independent of political ups and downs and recall the good harmony that the socialist Prime Minister António Guterres had in the past with the Spanish President José María Aznar. Both, in fact, signed 25 years ago one of the most important recent treaties between both countries: the Albufeira Convention that regulates the management of the five shared rivers.
Luís Montenegro made his first official visit abroad after taking office in Madrid to meet with President Pedro Sánchez. And both countries go hand in hand in various aspects of international politics, although Portugal has not gone as far as Spain and has refused to officially recognize the Palestinian state.. Of the hundreds of points that will be included in the official declaration, an important part has to do with global issues, from the commitment to the failed Mercosur agreement, to support for a peace conference on the Middle East.
The truth is that, compared to the low tone of the last summits, the program that begins this morning in Faro contains strategic issues. Some arrive already tied up, such as the construction of two new international bridges between the Alentejo and the Algarve, on the Portuguese side, and Extremadura and Andalusia, on the Spanish side. Their financing is provided for in Portugal’s Recovery and Resilience Plan, but they required the Spanish green light. The Council of Ministers on October 15 gave way to these infrastructures that will link Alcoutim and Sanlúcar del Guadiana, as well as Montalvão and Cedillo, on the Sever River. They were two old demands that will make life easier for the populations on both sides of the Raya, now condemned to make detours of dozens of kilometers.
Although progress has also been made in the agreement to modify the management of the Tagus and Guadiana riversthere were still pending issues that the Spanish Vice President Teresa Ribera and the Portuguese Minister of the Environment, Graça Carvalho, closed late on Tuesday. The most important thing will be the establishment of ecological flows to guarantee the good state of the river ecosystems throughout the year, as well as the payment of water withdrawals in the Alqueva reservoir by Spanish farmers. It is also planned that the situation of energy interconnections with France and the H2med green hydrogen corridor will be addressed.
Infrastructure will once again be one of the most scrutinized matters and it is expected that commitments will be made to complete new sections of highway that would increase the connection between both countries at the height of Castilla y León and Extremadura. At the railway level, the Spanish want Portugal to further accelerate the construction of high-speed rail between Lisbon and the border with the aim of promoting rail mobility between the two Iberian capitals for the 2030 World Cup. The Portuguese Government’s calendar foresees that it will be ready in 2034two years after the opening of the high-speed line between Lisbon and Porto, a crucial connection for the country as it is the area of greatest demographic and economic concentration. Xoan Vázquez Mao, secretary general of Eixo Atlántico, which brings together 37 cities in both countries, believes that both high-speed projects do not compete and that the A Coruña-Lisbon railway corridor is on track. “The entire route is underway in some phase, the only thing that remains is to specify the location of the new railway bridge over the Miño and that could also be announced at this summit,” he stated.
