Portuguese PM Hails Excellent Relations with ‘Stable’ ‘Reliable’ Morocco
The Portuguese Prime Minister, António Costa, highlighted the excellent relations between his country and Morocco, a “stable and reliable” partner.
“Relations between Portugal and Morocco, a stable and reliable partner, are excellent, anchored in strong historical, cultural, economic and commercial ties,” said Costa in an interview with MAP on the eve of the high-level meeting held Friday in Lisbon.
“Morocco is part of our immediate neighborhood. Rabat is the closest capital to Lisbon,” the Portuguese Prime Minister added.
“We have repeatedly welcomed Morocco’s ambitious reform efforts aimed at modernizing its economy and consolidating a modern society that makes the Kingdom a stable and reliable partner, both bilaterally and regionally and internationally,” said Costa.
According to him, “Morocco, like Portugal, has an important role to play in the stability of its immediate neighborhood, but also in relation to major global challenges, such as the transition to green energy, which is fundamental to meeting the challenge of climate change.”
To give new impetus to this partnership, the two countries “will hold their Fourteenth High-Level Meeting in Lisbon on Friday, and next year we will celebrate the 30th anniversary of our Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighborliness and Cooperation, as well as the 250th anniversary of the historic Peace Treaty of 1774.”
In addition, he said, the two countries are linked by “a wide range of bilateral agreements in various areas of cooperation, including culture, economy, trade, science and technology, environmental protection, infrastructure and fisheries.
“It is a relationship with a rich past, but above all with a very promising future, based on the friendship between our two governments and our two peoples, and on the existence of common projects for the future of our two countries,” said the Portuguese Prime Minister.
“This 14th HLM will allow us to resume the regularity of our meetings at the highest level after a few years of interruption, particularly due to the Covid-19 pandemic,” said the Portuguese official.
It will also make it possible, according to Costa, “to formalize the next stage of our bilateral relations, which both governments have decided to elevate to the status of “strategic partnership”, corresponding, on the formal level, to what is already the daily reality of our increasingly dense and diversified relations.
ALdar : LA MAP
