Portugal and Spain consider that the current situation of the pandemic is different from that recorded in March, justifying surgical and specific measures, and will not close the common borders, the heads of diplomacy of the two countries said today in Lisbon.
The current phase of covid-19, and the prospects for the next Portuguese-Spanish Summit, which will take place in the city of Guarda on October 2nd and 3rd, dominated the press conference of Augusto Santos Silva and his Spanish counterpart Arancha González Laia, in Lisbon, which at their working meeting also addressed various topics on the European agenda and international issues.
“No,” replied Augusto Santos Silva about an eventual closure of common borders. “It is not by closing ourselves that we will solve this common problem that we have, the pandemic.
“On the contrary, it is cooperating with us and doing what we have to do at the level of public authorities, maintaining and increasing the response capacity of our health systems and raising awareness among our fellow citizens, because this fight against the pandemic is won with contribution and effort of each one ”, defended the head of Portuguese diplomacy.
A position corroborated by Arancha González Laia, when insisting that the situation in Spain and Portugal is not an exception, but the rule, and reveal that at this stage there is a high rate of infections of asymptomatic people, which poses new challenges.
“The outbreaks that are occurring in Spain and Portugal are the same outbreaks that we have seen in France, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and, therefore, are not the exception, they are the rule,” he said.
“Our responsibility is to manage them. In Spain, more than half of the infected people are asymptomatic, which gives an idea of the country’s effort in tests (…) and that the surgical isolation of citizens who have tested positive should be imposed ”, said the Spanish minister.
The head of Spanish diplomacy also excluded the closure of borders in this new phase of the virus and defended a “surgical” response, to prevent new outbreaks in several European countries from becoming a problem for health services.
“We must be able to treat and control and seek this surgical treatment of the virus while also maintaining an area of freedom in our economies, in our societies, so that our countries can continue to function and with great doses of social responsibility”, pointed out.
Arancha González Laia insisted that in Spain citizens are being surgically confined “because the country is not confined”, and considered the current situation different from that registered in March.
“With more specific and decisive measures, open borders, the freedom of movement of most of our citizens can be maintained and while protecting their health. (…). We will continue to manage this new phase of the pandemic, which, I insist, where our two countries are not the exception but the norm, ”said the minister.
Augusto Santos Silva also stressed that, in the case of Portugal, the number of contagions is increasing, unlike people hospitalized or hospitalized in intensive care.
“It is a new reality. (…) It is very important to understand that we are all Europeans and members of the European Union. And, therefore, it is not a question of establishing differences or divisions between countries ”, he said, to call for an effort at European level through coordinated measures.
In a reference to the Portuguese-Spanish summit on 02 and 03 October, the head of Portuguese diplomacy admitted that the theme of economic cooperation and bilateral cooperation in this recovery “will be a central theme, if not the central theme” of this meeting of the heads of Government both countries, and with a focus on cross-border cooperation.
“In the negotiations with the European Union, the reindustrialization of Europe will have two main protagonists in Portugal and Spain”, added the minister, after stressing that the two economies remain very integrated and dependent.
The Madrid counterpart reinforced this approach, noting that the Summit “seeks to respond to requests from companies, citizens, autonomous communities, municipalities, on both sides of the border, which ask us to place the emphasis on economic and social recovery following the crisis ”.
And in establishing the essential objective of the Summit, Arancha González Laia referred to the impetus for a “cross-border strategy” to respond to cross-border areas between Spain and Portugal.
“In this moment of post-covid crisis, this is when this cross-border strategy makes the most sense, in which we intend to visualize the commitment of our progressive governments that we are, in boosting an economic recovery that leaves no one behind and that focuses in particular on the areas most depopulated, those that perhaps suffered the greatest economic impact of this crisis. Cross-border areas that together we want to change in a very determined way to boost the economic and social transformation of our border regions ”, he maintained.
The heads of diplomacy in Portugal and Spain have not confirmed the resumption of rail links between Lisbon and Madrid, which have been interrupted since March, a topic that will also be addressed at the Guarda summit.
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