ANTÓNIO PEDRO SANTOS/LUSA
The Minister of State and Foreign Affairs, Paulo Rangel
Paulo Rangel warned the EU that forgetting the outermost regions, such as Madeira and the Azores, “has a price”, attributing tensions over Greenland to “less attention” to that autonomous Danish territory.
The Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paulo Rangelleft, this Tuesday, warnings to the European Union, remembering that forgetting outermost regions “has a price”.
“Greenland is outside the EU for a long time, but perhaps it was some neglect and less attention that was given to this territory that explains some of the tensions we are witnessing today”, considered the official, speaking at the end of a debate in the Portuguese parliament on the European Commission’s program for this year, with the presence of the European Commissioner Maria Luis Albuquerque.
For the head of Portuguese diplomacy, “the lack of attention to the outermost regions has a price to be paid in the future”.
Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, has been coveted by the US President, Donald Trumpwhich has already declared that it would take possession of the vast Arctic island, with a strategic location and significant mineral resources, .
Rangel defended that “a European Union that wants to be a geopolitical space cannot fail to consider the outermost regions”, leaving criticism of the next long-term budget (multi-annual financial framework 2028-2034).
“It is nonsense that the (European) Commission, in its proposal, forgets the outermost regions when it precisely says it wants to be geopolitical”, he stated.
As outermost regions, such as Madeiras and the Azoreshe continued, “they are European territories and in which the European Union has a role”.
If Brussels, “due to its distance, its specificity, tends perhaps, without any negative intention, not to give them the importance that they have, obviously there will be a moment when they become critical for the Union, but the The Union no longer has the instruments to go back and correct past mistakes”, considered the head of Portuguese diplomacy.
