Community of Portuguese Language Countries
The Community of Portuguese Language Countries, also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth, is an international organization and political association of Lusophone nations across four continents, where Portuguese is an official language. The CPLP operates as a privileged, multilateral forum for the mutual cooperation of the governments, economies, non-governmental organizations, and peoples of the Lusofonia. The CPLP consists of 9 member states and 19 associate observers, located in Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa.
The history of the CPLP began when it was founded in 1996, in Lisbon, by Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, and São Tomé and Príncipe, nearly two decades after the beginning of the decolonization of the Portuguese Empire. Following the independence of Timor-Leste in 2002 and the application by Equatorial Guinea in 2014, both of those countries became members of the CPLP. Macau, Galicia, and Uruguay are formally interested in full membership and another 17 countries across the world are formally interested in associate observer status.
History
The idea of a type of international community or political union of Portuguese language countries had been proposed and studies numerous times in history. However, the idea for what would become the CPLP came about in 1983, during a state visit to Cabo Verde by Jaime Gama, Foreign Minister of Portugal, when he first proposed a biennial summit of heads of state and government of Lusophone countries of the world and the idea of regular meetings between ministerial counterparts of the member states.The Community of Portuguese Language Countries was officially founded on 17 July 1996 at the 1st CPLP Heads of State & Government Summit, in Lisbon, Portugal.
In 2005, during a meeting in Luanda, the ministers of culture of the member states declared the 5 May as the Lusophone Culture Day.
Through successive enlargements, the Union has grown from the seven founding states—Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, and São Tomé and Príncipe—to the current nine, with the self-determination of Timor-Leste in 2002 and the accession of Equatorial Guinea in 2014 at the 10th CPLP Summit in Dili, Timor-Leste with the issuance of the Dili Declaration.
The community has grown beyond its mission in fostering cultural ties between the Portuguese language countries into facilitating trade and political cooperation between the Lusophone countries of the world, with the CPLP is the fourth largest producer of oil in the world and its citizens totalling more than 270 million people.
In 2017, in Brasilia, the nine member states agreed to enlarge cooperation in matters of the seas, tourism, economy and a more ambitious defense and cooperation mechanisms. More rights to the observer states was also approved, which Argentina planned to join.
Structure
The CPLP's guidelines and priorities are established by a biannual Conference of Heads of State and Government and the Organization's plan of action is approved by the Council of Foreign Ministers, which meets every year. Special summits can requested at any time by 2/3 of the member states, usually for the purpose of pressing matters or incidents at the moment. There are also monthly meetings of the Permanent Steering Committee that follow specific initiatives and projects.The headquarters of the CPLP is in Penafiel Palace in Lisbon, Portugal, but the organization maintains dedicated bureaus in all of the foreign ministries of the CPLP member states.
The CPLP is financed by its member states.
Mission
CPLP is a multilateral forum created to deepen cultural, economic, and political cooperation among the Lusophone nations of the world. The prime objectives of the CPLP are:- Promotion and dissemination of the Portuguese language
- Political and diplomatic cooperation between the member states of the CPLP
- Cooperation in all areas, including education, health, science and technology, defense, agriculture, public administration, communications, justice, public safety, culture, sports and media
Executive Secretary
| # | Name | Portrait | Country | Start | End | Background |
| 1 | Marcolino José Carlos Moco | July 1996 | July 2000 | 3rd Prime Minister of Angola | ||
| 2 | :pt:Dulce Pereira|Dulce Maria Pereira | July 2000 | August 2002 | President of the :pt:Fundação Cultural Palmares|Fundação Cultural Palmares | ||
| 3 | :de:João Augusto de Médicis|João Augusto de Médicis | August 2002 | April 2004 | Brazilian Ambassador to Kenya Brazilian Ambassador to Poland Brazilian Ambassador to China Brazilian Ambassador to Chile | ||
| 4 | Luís de Matos Monteiro da Fonseca | July 2004 | July 2008 | Cabo Verdean Ambassador to European Community Cabo Verdean Ambassador to Russia Cabo Verdean Ambassador to Austria Cabo Verdean Ambassador to the United Nations | ||
| 5 | Domingos Simões Pereira | July 2008 | July 2012 | 16th Prime Minister of Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Bissau Minister of Public Works | ||
| 6 | Murade Isaac Murargy | July 2012 | January 2017 | Secretary-General of the Presidency of Mozambique Mozambican Ambassador to France and Germany | ||
| 7 | Maria do Carmo Trovoada Pires de Carvalho Silveira | January 2017 | December 2018 | 13th Prime Minister of São Tomé and Príncipe Governor of the São Toméan Central Bank | ||
| 8 | Francisco Ribeiro Telles | December 2018 | Present | Portuguese Ambassador to Cabo Verde Portuguese Ambassador to Angola Portuguese Ambassador to Brazil Portuguese Ambassador to Italy |
Goodwill Ambassadors
Permanent Consultative Committee
Defense component
In 2016, CPLP revised its cooperation protocol in defense, affirming the organization in the promotion of peace and security.The 2017 Exercício Felino military exercise taking place in Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras, Resende, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, aims for the increased interoperability of the armed forces of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Timor-Leste. The first phase of the exercise, known as Carta took place in Cape Verde in 2016, in which the operation was planned and executed using computer networks as a war game. The Exercício Felino was established in the year 2000.
Membership
Member states
There are nine full member states of the CPLP. Seven were founding members of the CPLP: Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, and São Tomé and Príncipe; Timor Leste joined in 2002, after achieving independence and Equatorial Guinea joined in 2014.Macau candidacy
was the last Portuguese colony to be decolonized, and returned to China in 1999. It still retains traces of Lusophone culture and Portuguese is one of the official languages of the territory. Despite that, the majority of the population in Macau do not speak and understand Portuguese; rather, Cantonese is the main language. In 2006, during the II Ministerial meeting between China and Portuguese Speaking Countries, the CPLP Executive Secretary and Deputy ambassador Tadeu Soares invited the Chief Executive of the Government of the Macau Special Administrative Region, Edmund Ho, to request the Associate Observer status for Macau. The Government of Macau has not yet formalized this request.Equatorial Guinea accession
When the CPLP was formed, Equatorial Guinea asked for observer status. Equatorial Guinea was a Portuguese colony from the 15th to 18th centuries and has some territories where Portuguese-based creole languages are spoken and cultural connections with São Tomé and Príncipe and Portugal are felt. In the 21st century, the country has 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 states as associate observers. Equatorial Guinea then engaged in discussion for full membership. In June 2010, Equatorial Guinea asked to be admitted as full member. At its eighth summit in Luanda in July 2010, the CPLP decided to open formal negotiations with Equatorial Guinea about full membership in the CPLP. At its 10th summit in Dili in July 2014, Equatorial Guinea was admitted as CPLP member.Associate observers
In July 2006, during the Bissau summit, Equatorial Guinea and Mauritius were admitted as Associate Observers along with 17 International associations and organizations considered as Consultative Observers. On 23 July 2014, Equatorial Guinea was admitted as a CPLP member.Mauritius, which was discovered by Portuguese explorers and maintains strong connections with Mozambique. In 2008, Senegal, with historical connections to Portuguese colonisation in Casamance, was admitted as Associate Observer.
In July 2014, during the Dili summit, the Heads of State and Government approved a resolution that grants Georgia, Japan, Namibia and Turkey the status of Associate Observers. Japan has had historical contacts with the Portuguese language in the 16th and 17th century, and today has connections to the Lusophone world through Japanese Brazilians in Brazil and Japan. Namibia has had extensive contact to the Lusophone world due to its location just south of Angola.
Three European nations, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia, were admitted as observers along with Uruguay at the 2016 summit. Uruguay has historical ties to Brazil and Portugal and has some speakers of Portuñol, a Spanish–Portuguese pidgin. In January 2018 and prior to the 2018 summit, Italy requested the observer status as effort for the consolidation of bilateral relations with all of the Portuguese-speaking countries. In its request, the Italian government referred that due to the increasing number of associated observers in the community, CPLP is becoming a forum for countries in various geographical regions. Earlier in January, Andorra also formalized its candidacy for the same status. Italy shares a legacy of Ancient Rome and Italy is the non-lusuophone nation with the most number of university chairs in the Portuguese language. Because of immigration and geographic proximity, Portuguese is one of the most spoken languages in Andorra.
In the 2018 summit with all the heads of state present, with the exception of East Timor due to national policies issues, several observers joined the organization: Luxembourg, Andorra, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Serbia, Chile, France, Italy and the Organization of Ibero-American States joined as observers. Uruguay, an observer nation since 2016, admitted in early 2018 a candidacy to become full member of the CPLP.
Consultative observers
The status of consultative observer is granted to organizations of civil society throughout the Lusofonia and pan-Lusophone bodies, as well as Lusophone institutions based outside of the Lusofonia, which serve a consultative status to the CPLP.| Country | Consultative observers |
| |
| Galicia | |
| Pan-Lusofonia |
Scope
The Portuguese-speaking countries are home to 267 million people located across the globe but having a common language, a shared history, and some cultural similarities. The CPLP nations have a combined area of about, which is more than twice as large as the European Union, but with a little more than half of the population.Political cooperation
Since its formation, the CPLP has helped to solve problems in São Tomé and Príncipe and in Guinea-Bissau, because of coups d'état in those countries. The CPLP helped these two countries to take economic reforms and democratic ones.In the early 21st century, the leaders of the CPLP believed that peace in Angola and Mozambique, as well as East Timor's independence, favored the development of the CPLP and a strengthening of multilateral cooperation.
Language
Since many children in rural areas of Lusophone Africa and East Timor are out-of-school youth, the education officials in these regions seek help from Portugal and Brazil to increase the education to spread Portuguese fluency, as Portuguese is becoming one of the main languages in Southern Africa, where it is also taught in Namibia and South Africa.Angola has not yet signed the most recent accord on the orthography of the Portuguese language, and has asked other PALOP countries to support it in discussions on various points of that accord with Portugal.
Education
In many developing Portuguese-speaking nations, Portuguese is the language of government and commerce which means that Portuguese-speaking people from African nations can work and communicate with others in different parts of the world, especially in Portugal and Brazil, where the economies are stronger. Many leaders of Portuguese-speaking nations in Africa are fearful that language standards do not meet the fluency required and are therefore making it compulsory in schools so that a higher degree of fluency is achieved and young Africans will be able to speak a world language that will help them later in life.Lusophone Citizenship
Easing citizens' cross-border movement between the member states was proposed at the 2017 CPLP Summit. This proposal by Portugal and Cape Verde to Brazil was thought by some to conflict with Europe's Schengen area. However, this free movement is based on a different model: as residence permits, associated with the recognition of academic degrees and professional qualification, and maintenance of social rights including pension systems. It would henceforth establish the Lusophone citizenship, the cidadania lusófona.Institutions
CPLP Summits
The Conference of Heads of State and Government of the CPLP, commonly known as the CPLP Summit is a biennial meeting of heads of state and heads of government of the member states of the CPLP. It is considered one of the fundamental pillars of the CPLP's structure.;Objectives
The mission of the CPLP Summit is to:
- Define and focus the CPLP's strategy and general policy
- Adopt and implement the agenda agreed upon by member states
- To create institutions of the CPLP or delegate powers to the CPLP Council of Ministers
- Elect a rotating presidency of the CPLP
- Elect the CPLP Executive Secretary
| Summit | Host country | Host city | Year |
| I | Lisbon | 1996 | |
| II | Praia | 1998 | |
| III | Maputo | 2000 | |
| IV | Brasília | 2002 | |
| V | São Tomé | 2004 | |
| VI | Bissau | 2006 | |
| VII | Lisbon | 2008 | |
| VIII | Luanda | 2010 | |
| IX | Maputo | 2012 | |
| X | Dili | 2014 | |
| XI | Brasília | 2016 | |
| XII | Ilha do Sal | 2018 |