Transcript of Special briefing by MEA on President's State Visit to Portugal (April 08, 2025)
India - Ministry of External Affairs
April 08, 2025
Shri Rajesh Parihar, Director (XPD): Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this special briefing about the ongoing state visit of Honorable Rashtrapati ji to Portugal. And for this briefing, I have with me on dais, Shri Tanmaya Lal, Secretary (West), Ministry of External Affairs, Shri Puneet Kundal, Ambassador of India to Portugal, Shri Piyush Srivastava, Additional Secretary (Europe West), and Shri Ajay Singh, Press Secretary to the President of India.
Now I request Secretary (West) to brief the media on the visit. Sir.
Shri Tanmaya Lal, Secretary West: Thank you. Namaskar. Honorable Rashtrapati ji is completing a historic visit to Portugal.
The visit is taking place in the year when we marked the 50 years of the re-establishment of our diplomatic relations. This is also the first state visit from India to Portugal after a gap of 27 years. So it's a very, very important and historic visit.
Rashtrapati ji is visiting Portugal at the invitation of President of Portugal, His Excellency Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. I'm reminded that President de Sousa had visited India in 2020. The State Visit of Rashtrapati ji began with a ceremonial welcome, where she inspected the Guard of Honor and received the ceremonial gun salute, which was accorded to her.
The ceremony was hosted in the city square, Praça do Império. After that, President of India, visited the Jerónimos Monastery and paid tribute to the national poet of Portugal, Luís Vaz de Camões.
The discussions at the Belém Palace between the two Presidents commenced with a tete-a-tete, which was followed by delegation-level talks.
The two leaders also jointly released postage stamps, which commemorate the 50 years of diplomatic relations.
And at the end, the two leaders also made Press Statements.
Later in the evening, the President of Portugal hosted a State Banquet for our President, which took place in Ajuda Palace. One of the special moments at the State Banquet was a music recital by Portuguese artist, Rão Kyao, who also plays the flute, and he also played the 'Vaishnav Jan To' at the State Banquet. Rashtrapati ji also met the Prime Minister of Portugal, His Excellency Luís Montenegro. Prime Minister Montenegro and Prime Minister Modi had met last year in Brazil on the sidelines of the G20.
The meeting between the President Murmu and Prime Minister Montenegro took place at the Palace São Bento.
After that meeting ... earlier today, the President also visited the Assembly of Portugal, which is the Parliament, where she held discussions with the Speaker of the Parliament, His Excellency José Pedro Aguiar-Branco. The leaders had a tête-à-tête, which was also followed by a delegation-level broader discussions.
And the President also provided a tour of the Assembly Hall. Yesterday, the Mayor of Lisbon City, His Excellency Carlos Moedas, he hosted a special event at the City Council, where the Mayor presented the Key of Lisbon to our President. Among those present were City Councilors, and also some members of the Indian community.
The President, in her Address, had thanked the Mayor, but also said that she is happy to become Lisboeta, which means resident of Lisbon.
Earlier today, President visited the Champalimaud Foundation, which is a cancer care and research and neuroscience research facility. It's a prestigious facility and where there are also Indian researchers working there. She had a tour of the facilities. The President planted a tree in the premises of the Champalimaud Foundation. She planted a camellia tree.
Later, she had an interaction with the Indian researchers who are working there. And the President of Portugal also joined our President for this visit. One of the interesting features is that the building of the Champalimaud Foundation was designed by Indian architect Charles Correa.
After the visit to the Champalimaud Foundation, both the Presidents traveled to the place where there are statues of Mahatma Gandhi and Kasturba Gandhi ji. Both Presidents paid floral tributes at the venue.
This was followed by a visit to Radhakrishna Temple, where again President de Sousa joined our President during that visit. Both Presidents offered prayers in the temple, where they also met members of the Indian community.
Shortly afterwards now, the President will meet and address members of the Indian community before the state visit comes to an end.
This state visit has been very important as it carries forward the very strong momentum of high-level engagement between India and Portugal. As I mentioned, it's a landmark year, 50 years of our diplomatic relations. President of Portugal accompanied or had several interactions with our President, different engagements, and also accompanied her to various important events.
If I can just recollect, not only the ceremonial aspects of the welcome, the tete-a-tete, the delegation-level talks, the joint release of the stamps, and the Press Statement, he hosted the State Banquet and also accompanied our President to the Champalimaud Foundation, the event at the Gandhi statue and the temple.
Both the Presidents also interacted with almost 60 Indian researchers at the Champalimaud Foundation, where our President took questions from some of the researchers, and later the President of Portugal also addressed the gathering. This number of engagements where both Presidents were together shows the high importance attached by both countries and the leadership to this partnership.
Our President also met the Prime Minister, Speaker, and Mayor, and there were several occasions where she could meet members from the Indian community, as I described, including, for example, the special event at the City Council, the Champalimaud Foundation, the visit to the Temple, also the State Banquet had many guests from the Indian community. And just shortly after this press briefing, President will also be meeting and addressing members of the Indian community.
The visit has reinforced our strong partnership, which is based on historical ties, cultural affinities, and the diaspora linkages. And today the partnership is also strongly growing in several areas, including trade, investment, technology, and talent mobility.
Some of the areas, for instance, of our cooperation include renewable energy, digital technology, education, research, and healthcare. The India-Portugal partnership also contributes very strongly to the India-EU strategic partnership, and also India's engagement with the Portuguese-speaking, the Lusophone group of countries, where now India is an associate member of the CPLP, which is the grouping of the Portuguese-speaking countries. There is also strong ongoing cooperation between India and Portugal in various multilateral fora, especially the United Nations.
During the visit, the Portuguese leadership reiterated their support for the permanent membership of India at the UN Security Council, and the President expressed our deep appreciation and thanked the Portuguese leadership for this reiteration.
In her remarks, President thanked not only the President, but the other leadership of Portugal and the people of Portugal for this friendship.
She engaged the members of the Indian diaspora, and the visit has helped in further strengthening the strong historical ties between India and Portugal, which also contribute to the India-EU partnership and our collaboration at the multilateral level.
Thank you.
Shri Rajesh Parihar, Director (XPD): Thank you, sir, for your remarks. The floor is now open for questions, and before you ask questions, I would request if you can introduce yourself with your name and your organization's name.
Jayanti, DD News: Good afternoon, Sir. This is Jayanthi from DD News. I have two questions. First is, what are the major outcomes from this state visit? And the second is, how do you assess the success of this visit in light of the larger India-EU relationship?
Abhishek Sonkar, PTI: Sir, I'm Abhishek from PTI. What more activities can we see in this year of 50 years of the establishment of relations between two countries?
Shri Tanmaya Lal, Secretary West: Okay. I'll first take the question on the India-EU relationship. The India-Portugal ties, and our close collaboration have really contributed to India's engagement with the European Union. And this is not new. It is very longstanding. In fact, going back to the year 2000, Portugal, during their presidency of the European Union, hosted the first ever India-EU summit. Later, in 2021, again, during the Portuguese presidency, Portugal hosted the first ever summit of the India and EU leaders, which is a unique format.
So, all the leaders of all EU member countries and our prime minister were together at this summit. So, in terms of contributing to the strong strategic partnership between India and EU, Portugal has been a very good partner. The relationship, of course, is also very useful because India and EU are currently negotiating an FTA agreement. And we also have a Trade and Technology Council at a ministerial level. So, our strategic partnership has really grown and expanded over the last few years. And the India-Portugal close ties contribute very strongly to this partnership.
You would also be aware that the former Prime Minister of Portugal, His Excellency António Costa, he is now the President of the European Council. When he was the Prime Minister, he had visited India in 2017 and 2019. And as you may be aware, His Excellency Costa is of Indian origin. So, there are multiple threads of our partnership between India and Portugal. And this really contributes to the strong India-EU strategic partnership.
Among the outcomes of the visit, as I mentioned, it has been a historic visit, coming as it does during the 50 years of our diplomatic relations, as we celebrate that. But not only that, it really goes on to describe to you the various elements of the visit, not only in terms of the formal discussion aspects, but visit to the research foundation, visit interactions with the Indian community, many other substantive engagements at different levels. So, it has really helped to further build upon our existing strong historical, cultural, and diaspora ties, and stressing on our modern partnership in various fields of trade, investment, technology, talent, mobility, and in a number of areas, ranging from renewable energy, green hydrogen, to some of the other areas like education, health care.
In terms of activities, I think both sides are already ... they have hosted and are planning to host a series of events in India and Portugal in many spheres. Many of these events reflect our strong, long-standing cultural and historical ties. The joint release of the stamp, for instance, shows our friendship and ties. In fact, the stamps reflect ... the stamps released both by the Indian side and the Portuguese side depict traditional dresses worn by the people of both countries, reflecting the cultural similarities. There are many events planned in terms of art, cinema, music, craft, cuisine ... many of these areas where we ... films. I think our Ambassador has already hosted some events in this regard. Maybe I'll invite him to mention some of the other events that we are planning to host here. And we are focusing on how we can take the ties further at the level of the youth, the innovation, digital technologies, and so on.
So maybe you would like to add some of the events in this.
Shri Puneet Roy Kundal, Ambassador of India to Portugal: So, thank you very much. The decision to celebrate 50 years of diplomatic relations was reiterated by both the Prime Minister in their meetings on the margins of the G20 in Brazil last year. Subsequently there has been activities conducted both by the Portuguese embassy in Delhi and by us here. I can share with you that we started our activities with a film festival in the month of January, which was inaugurated by the Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel himself. We are also organizing dance events, especially Indian cultural ... Indian traditional dances. We are also doing Music Events. We plan to host film events all over Portugal, including in the islands of Madeira and perhaps Azores. One of the things that we did was that the book of Fernando Pessoa, called Mensagem, was translated into Hindi. And on the 21st of March, which is the International Writers' Day, we invited the author from India to come and release the book here. It was done at the Camões Institute in cooperation with the Government of Portugal.
That book has really created a lot of interest, and the book was mentioned yesterday by the Honorable President of Portugal in his speech last evening as well. Fernando Pessoa, and the book is called Mensagem, which means Sandesh in Hindi, message. So, that book has really ... it's really caught everybody's fancy because even the President mentioned it in his speech last evening at the State Banquet. Like I said, we also want to do India Days across several cities. End of this month, we'll be hosting an event at the Coimbra University, which will involve a talk on India, Indian dances, cuisine, and a film show. So, we are reaching out not only to cities and municipalities, but also to Universities. And the icing on the cake perhaps for the 50 years as the visit by the Rashtrapati ji herself which really helps us to nail the celebrations ... and to celebrate the celebration this year in a befitting manner. Thank you.
Shri Rajesh Parihar, Director (XPD): As I see no more questions, Sir, with your permission, I would like to conclude this special media briefing. Thank you, sir. Thank you, everyone. And the briefing is over.
Lisbon
April 08, 2025
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