Community of Portuguese Language Countries

style="font-size: larger; margin-left: inherit;"|**Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa**

Official languages	Portuguese
Executive Secretariat	Luís de Matos Monteiro da Fonseca (since 2004)
Established	1996
Member states	8 (plus 2 observers)
Headquarters	Lisbon, Portugal
Official site	Official site of CPLP (in Portuguese)

The Community of Portuguese Language Countries (Portuguese: Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa or CPLP) is a multilateral forum for mutual friendship between the lusophone nations across the world where Portuguese is an official language.

The formation and member states

CPLP was formed in 1996 with seven countries: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal and São Tomé and Príncipe. East Timor joined the community in 2002 after regaining independence from Indonesia. Brazil, East Timor, and the five African member countries are all former colonial possessions of Portugal.

The CPLP is a bloc in the process of construction and the societies of the eight member nations have little knowledge of each other. One of the unique features of the CPLP is that its members are linked by a common language and shared cultural features, which form a bridge between countries separated by great distances and different continents.

In 2005, during a meeting in Luanda, the ministers of culture of the eight countries declared the May 5th as the Lusophone Culture Day (Dia da Cultura Lusófona in Portuguese).

In July 2006, during the Bissau summit, Equatorial Guinea and Mauritius with other 17 International associations and organizations where admited as observers.

Members

Observer

(Instituto Internacional de Macau)
And 17 other international organizations.

The importance of CPLP

The Portuguese-speaking countries are home to more than 223 million people located across the globe but having similar cultures and a shared history. The CPLP nations have a combined area of about 10,742,000 km,² which is larger than Canada.

Since its formation, the CPLP has helped to solve problems in São Tomé and Príncipe and in Guinea-Bissau, because of coups d'etat in those countries. These two problems were solved, and in fact, have helped these two countries to take economic reforms (in the case of São Tomé) and democratic ones (in the case of Guinea-Bissau).

The leaders of CPLP believe that peace in Angola and Mozambique as well as East Timor's independence will favour the further development of the CPLP and a strengthening of multilateral cooperation.

CPLP System

The Organization’s Executive Secretariat is responsible for designing and implementing CPLP´s projects and initiatives. It is located in Lisbon, Portugal. The Executive Secretary has a two-year mandate, and can be re-elected only once.

CPLP´s guidelines and priorities are established by biannual Conference of Heads of State and the Organization’s plan of action is approved by the Council of Foreign Ministers, which meets every year.

There are also monthly meetings of the Permanent Steering Committee that follow specific initiatives and projects.

The CPLP is mainly financed by its eight member states.

The CPLP flag has now eight wings, not seven, to reflect East Timor's membership.

Executive Secretaries

Name	Took Office	Left Office	Country
Marcolino Moco	17 July 1996	July 2000	Angola
Dulce Maria Pereira	July 2000	1 August 2002	Brazil
João Augusto de Médicis	1 August 2002	April 2004	Brazil
Zeferino Martins (Interim)	April 2004	July 2004	Mozambique
Luís de Matos Monteiro da Fonseca	July 2004	Present	Cape Verde

Main initiatives

CPLP´s HIV-Aids Programme – designed to help the 5 African member states
Centre for the Development of Entrepreneurial Skills – being established in Luanda, Angola
Centre for the Development of Public Administration – being established in Maputo, Mozambique
Centre for East-Timorese Official Languages
Conference on Malaria – to be held in São Tomé and Príncipe
Portuguese Language Census
Digital School and University
Electoral Mission to Guinea-Bissau (East Timor’s Foreign Minister, the Nobel Prize laureate, José Ramos-Horta is CPLP´s Representative to the Electoral Process)
Emergency Project for the Support of Institution Rebuilding in Guinea-Bissau
Rebuilding East Timor’s Justice and Public Administration
Combating Poverty and Starvation

Free Movement of People

The eight Portuguese-speaking nations signed agreements to facilitate the cross-border circulation of their citizens, including multiple-entry visas for businesspeople and others who travel frequently, a streamlining of the requisites and fees paid for short visits, and the right to medical treatment and residency permits for all CPLP citizens in every one of the member countries.

However, a proposal for the adoption of common citizenship failed because Angola and Mozambique opposed. The statute, which is already in force between Brazil and Portugal, would provide equal civil and political rights for the citizens of any nation of CPLP. However, one of the main obstacles to this proposal is the fear of large scale immigration to Portugal, a member state of the European Union. Free movement among CPLP countries could jeopardize the duties of Portugal under the EU Treaties. In the early 1990s, there was a significant amount of migration from Brazil to Portugal, which resulted in the other EU member states pressuring Portugal to tighten its borders with Brazil (largely because borders within the EU were being dismantled at this time with the introduction of the Schengen area), which caused a short diplomatic spat between the two lusophone nations.

In 2005, Portugal created a special corridor and services in its Lisbon airport for the travellers from the other CPLP nations, as well as the one that exists for the EU citizens. This corridor was agreed upon during the CPLP summit of July 2002 held in Brasília.

Other countries and territories

Some Galicians want the autonomous region of Galicia (Galiza) in Spain to take part in this Union, because their language, Galego, is closely related to Portuguese (in fact many consider one to be a dialect of the other). The two languages have a common origin in Galicia and northern Portugal. A similar case happened with East Timor. But before independence East Timor had the status of Observer, although the exiled government of East Timor tried to gain full member status before independence.

When the CPLP was formed, Equatorial Guinea also asked for observer status. Equatorial Guinea has some territories where Portuguese-based creole languages are spoken and cultural connections with São Tomé and Príncipe and Portugal are felt. Also, the country has recently cooperated with Portuguese-speaking African countries and Brazil at an educational level. At the CPLP summit of July 2004, in São Tomé and Príncipe, the member states agreed to change the statutes of the community to accept Equatorial Guinea as an observer. Morocco also became interested in an observer status.

The Instituto Internacional de Macau, from Macao, has observer status in the community as well. Its aim is to introduce Macanese youngsters to the CPLP nations and culture, in order to help assure the distinct identity of the territory within China.

External links

Official site of CPLP (in Portuguese)
Seminário da CPLP – Culture and Development of CPLP (in Portuguese)
Africanidade The African countries of the CPLP (in Portuguese)
ELO Economical relations between the EU and CPLP
UCCLA Unity of the Capital Cities of Portuguese language

Portuguese language | Foreign relations of Portugal | International organizations

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