RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The United States formalized a request for joining the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP), as an associate member. The information was given to the UN News in New York by the executive secretary of the Lusophone group, the Portuguese Ambassador Francisco Ribeiro Telles.
According to him, the U.S. State Department says that the request aims to bring the US closer to the Lusophone dispersal in America, which includes mainly Brazilians, Cape Verdeans and Portuguese. These three communities bring together about one million people who live in the United States and have the Portuguese language in their countries of origin or heritage.
According to Ribeiro Telles, the US request should be analyzed by the CPLP next year, alongside those of other candidate nations. For him, the American request reveals the increased political and strategic relevance of the Portuguese speaking countries.
“We already have a list of States that have already formalized their intention to become associated countries of the CPLP and that will have their applications considered at the Summit of Heads of State and Government, which will take place in Luanda, Angola, next year. At the level of countries themselves, we have requests from Côte d’Ivoire, Romania, Qatar, and Peru, which are the countries that are about to become associated members of the CPLP,” said the executive secretary.
The CPLP brings together nine countries, which have Portuguese as their official language: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe, Timor-Leste and Equatorial Guinea.
In addition to full and effective members, the CPLP has 19 associate observers: Andorra, Argentina, Chile, Slovakia, France, Georgia, Hungary, Japan, Italy, Luxembourg, Mauritius, Namibia, United Kingdom, Senegal, Serbia, Czech Republic, Turkey, Uruguay, and the Organisation of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture.
According to the International Institute of Portuguese Language, there are more than seven million Portuguese speakers living outside their countries of origin. France, Japan, the United States, and South Africa are among the nations that most house Portuguese speaking citizens.
Source: Agência Brasil