Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries

Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries CPLP
Organization flag
Member States
Portuguese name	Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa
Organization type	multilateral forum
Seat of the organs	Lisbon , Portugal
Secretary General	Maria do Carmo Silveira
Member States	Angola Equatorial Guinea Brazil Guinea-Bissau Cape Verde Mozambique East Timor Portugal Sao Tome and Principe
Official and working languages	Portuguese
surface	10,742,000 km²
population	223 million
Population density	Inhabitants per km²
founding	1996

The Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries ( Portuguese Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa , CPLP) is a multilateral forum for friendship and cooperation among the Lusophones , i. H. Portuguese speaking countries.

The CPLP was founded in 1996 and comprises the nine states (as of 2018) in which Portuguese is the official language. Most of the members are former colonies of Portugal . A number of states are also observing the CPLP.

prehistory

As early as January 1955, Portugal and Brazil had agreed regular consultations and mutual equal treatment of citizens in a state treaty. H. Brazilian citizens should have the same civil rights in Portugal as Portuguese citizens , as should Portuguese citizens in Brazil. In addition, the possibility of dual citizenship was agreed, i.e. H. Portuguese and Brazilians should be able to apply for the citizenship of the other country, which was excluded in the Portuguese constitutions since 1826 since Brazil's independence in 1822/25. In August 1965, the then dictator of Portugal, António de Oliveira Salazar, proposed to Brazil the formation of a community “for the safeguarding and defense of the national heritage”. This community, to which Portugal's colonies should also belong, should have played the role of a great power in the South Atlantic. But Brazil oriented itself more towards the USA and the Portuguese colonies were in revolt. Only Adhemar Perreira de Barros , the governor of the most populous state of Sao Paulo, was in favor of the idea and in January 1966 suggested to Portugal the formation of a “Luso-Brazilian confederation”. Portuguese capital should stop Brazilian inflation and invest in the development of Brazilian resources, while Brazil should help Portugal maintain the colonies and fight communism. In the same year, however, de Barros was deposed, only a Portuguese-Brazilian contract on scientific and technical cooperation was concluded in 1966.

During the Portuguese Carnation Revolution of 1974, Portuguese President António de Spínola tried to end the lost colonial war in Africa by transforming the colonial empire into a pluricontinental Luso-Brazilian-African federation and thus to be able to dissuade the African peoples from the demand for complete independence .

It was not until 1983, long after the Carnation Revolution, which brought independence to the African colonies, that the relationship between Portugal and its former colonies normalized and the first proposals for a lusophonic cooperation were discussed. In 1986, the cooperation agreement signed in 1966 between Brazil and Portugal was extended.

Members

National Parliament of East Timor with the national flags of the CPLP members

•  Angola
•  Equatorial Guinea
•  Brazil
•  Guinea-Bissau
•  Cape Verde
•  Mozambique
•  East Timor
•  Portugal
•  Sao Tome and Principe

The CPLP was founded in 1996 by the seven countries Angola , Brazil , Guinea-Bissau , Cape Verde , Mozambique , Portugal and São Tomé and Príncipe . After independence from Indonesia in 2002, East Timor also joined the community. On July 13, 2007, Equatorial Guinea adopted Portuguese as one of its official languages ​​and was officially admitted to the community in 2014.

The Member States together have more than 223 million inhabitants and cover an area of ​​10,742,000 km², which is slightly larger than the USA or Canada .

Observer status

CPLP headquarters since 2011: the Lisbon city palace Palácio Penafiel from the early 17th century.

• since 2006: Mauritius 
• since 2008: Senegal 
• since 2014: Georgia , Japan , Namibia , Turkey    
• since 2016: Czech Republic , Slovakia , Hungary , Uruguay    
• since 2018: Andorra , Argentina , Chile , United Kingdom , France , Italy , Luxembourg , Serbia        

Creole languages emerged from Portuguese in some of the former colonies of Portugal . Equatorial Guinea (until 2014) and Mauritius have had associated observer status since 2006, and Senegal since 2008. Even Macau aims at this. Macau was a Portuguese overseas province until 1999 and Portuguese is still one of the official languages. The Macau Special Administrative Region was invited to adopt observer status in 2006. The approval of the government of the People's Republic of China is pending.

Observer status was mentioned for the first time at the 2nd Summit of Heads of State and Government in Praia in July 1998, and in 2005 the CPLP's Council of Ministers in Luanda established the conditions for this association agreement. The aim of this agreement was the eventual admission of Portuguese-speaking countries or regions belonging to third countries to the Community. However, this status can also generally be conferred on states that follow the principles of the CPLP , particularly with regard to the promotion of democracy, good governance and respect for human rights.

At the 10th Conference of Heads of State and Government on 23 July 2014 in Dili were Georgia , Namibia , the Turkey and Japan associated observer.

At the 11th Conference of Heads of State and Government on October 31 and November 1, 2016 in Brasília , Hungary , the Czech Republic , Slovakia and Uruguay were granted associated observer status.

At the 12th conference, which took place on the Cape Verde island of Sal from July 17 to 18, 2018 , Andorra , Argentina , Chile , Great Britain and Northern Ireland , France , Italy , Luxembourg and Serbia were added to this list.

The Community

The community is in the process of being established, because it is an organization of countries that know very little of each other and are “only” connected by a common language, whereas great distances and cultural differences separate the eight states on different continents. In fact, however, there are no common organs and the budget of the community is only symbolic.

Since its inception, the CPLP has helped in Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe overcome internal crises after coups and has supported the introduction of political and economic reforms. However, a common citizenship proposed by Cape Verde was initially rejected by Portugal (indirectly also by Brazil).

An internal cooperation network in the legal sector has existed since 2005 .

The CPLP is based in Lisbon , where a Secretary General is elected every two years. General Secretary from 2008 to 2012 was Domingos Simões Pereira from Guinea-Bissau. His successor is Murade Isaac Miguigy Murargy from Mozambique. The eight member states largely provide the necessary financial resources. Brazil, Guinea-Bissau and Portugal are already represented at the headquarters of the Community with their own ambassadors. East Timor has announced the dispatch of an ambassador for the CPLP.

Although Portuguese-speaking, Mozambique joined the Commonwealth of Nations in addition to the CPLP and is associated with the OIF .

List of General Secretaries

IV. Conference of Heads of State or Government of the CPLP in Brasília , August 1, 2002

Surname	From	To	country
Marcolino Moco	July 17, 1996	July 2000	Angola
Dulce Maria Pereira	July 2000	August 1, 2002	Brazil
João Augusto de Médicis	August 1, 2002	April 2004	Brazil
Zeferino Martins (interim)	April 2004	July 2004	Mozambique
Luís de Matos Monteiro da Fonseca	July 2004	July 2008	Cape Verde
Domingos Simões Pereira	July 2008	September 2012	Guinea-Bissau
Murade Issac Murargy	September 2012	December 2016	Mozambique
Maria do Carmo Silveira	January 2017	officiating	Sao Tome and Principe

Candidates for Membership

Since the Galician language, like the Portuguese language, has its origin in the Galician-Portuguese language , there are considerations in Galicia to join the CPLP.

East Timor’s President José Ramos-Horta said in November 2008 that Indonesia would join the community as a good idea. The country had a relationship with Portugal through the colonial era. There are also thousands of Portuguese loan words in Bahasa Indonesia . Ramos-Horta could also imagine Malaysia's accession based on the history of Malacca .

Applicants for Associate Membership

Five other countries have formalized their intentions to become Associate Members of the Fellowship: Ivory Coast , Peru , Qatar , Romania and the United States . Their accession will be decided at the Community Summit of Heads of State or Government in Luanda in 2020 .

See also

• Jogos da Lusofonia
• PALOP
• Associação das Universidades de Língua Portuguesa (AULP)
• Aliança das Agências de Informação de Língua Portuguesa (ALP)

Web links

Commons : Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• CPLP website (Portuguese)
• Flag and History of a proposed "Portuguese Confederation"

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dr. Werner Rosenberg : Die Welt 1966 - data, facts and information of the year 1965 , page 448. Dietz Verlag Berlin 1966
2. ↑ Dr. Werner Rosenberg : Die Welt 1967 - data, facts and information for 1966 , page 130.Dietz Verlag Berlin 1967
3. ↑ CPLP website on Associate Observer Status , CPLP website, accessed June 17, 2019
4. ↑ José Carlos de Medeiros Nóbrega: The development of the Portuguese property law , p. 38 limited preview in the Google book search
5. ↑ Estados Unidos pedem para entrar na CPLP como membro associado agriculturaemar.com , November 9, 2019, accessed on November 13, 2019