The Regional Under Secretary for European Affairs and External Cooperation, Rodrigo Oliveira, signed, on Sunday on behalf of the President of the Government, the Joint Declaration between the Governments of the Republic of Cape Verde, the Portuguese Republic, the Kingdom of Spain and the Regional Governments of the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands, which establishes the Summit of the Macaronesian Archipelagos.
The document was signed on Sunday early afternoon in the city of Mindelo where the signatories agreed “to lay the foundations for a strategic and permanent political dialogue between the Macaronesian Archipelagos,” through the establishment of a Summit, a cooperation forum with the purpose of “promoting the sustainable development of that archipelagos and consistently contributing to the peace and safety in the mid-Atlantic area, where all islands are located.”
The Summit of the Macaronesian Archipelagos will meet biennially and includes a Joint Technical Commission whose mission is “to promote a strategy based on a vision shared by the four archipelagos as well as on a set of common goals and priority intervention areas.” The Government of Cape Verde will assume the presidency until 2012, at the time when the second meeting will be held in the Canary Islands.
In the Joint Declaration, the signatory Governments consider of “utmost importance” the promotion “of a common specific approach for global challenges, such as energy policy, maritime policy, transport and communication policy, human safety and the fight against transnational crime, climate change, preservation and protection policy for the environment, tourism policy and the wider use of information technologies.”
Trade, business and investment, vocational training and higher education, promotion and sharing of knowledge as well as cultural exchange are also other work and cooperation issues for the archipelagos.
In addition to the Regional Under Secretary for European Affairs and External Cooperation of the Azores, Rodrigo Oliveira, the Joint Declaration was also signed by the President of the Government of the Canary Islands, Paulino Rivero, the Regional Secretary for Education of Madeira, Francisco Fernandes, the Minister of State and Foreign Affairs of Portugal, Luís Amado, the Vice-President of the Spanish Government, Manuel Chavez, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cape Verde, José Brito.