H.E. Luis Filipe Castro Mendes

India and Portugal share strong political and cultural bonds. The tourist haven Goa and Daman and Diu are symbols of the Portuguese legacy and heritage in India. ANA spoke with the Portugal Ambassador to India on a variety of issues concerning the two countries.

ANA: The partnership between the European Union and India was recognized in 2000 with the initiation of their summit in Lisbon, which was organized and based on their common values and aspirations. Your Excellency, given the enormous potential between them, what are the immediate international challenges the two regions need to strengthen their cooperation?

H.E.: In the year 2000 Portugal had the clear perception that India was worthily becoming one of the major players in the international arena. Back then, we have imposed our vision of an EU-India strategic partnership based on regular and structured political and economic dialogue. History proved how visionary this decision was. The Joint- Action Plan that we are successfully implementing constitutes today the major pillar of our privileged relation. However, as the world continues to evolve at an impressive pace we should provide our mutual relation with the most appropriate cooperation instrument allowing us to cope with in numerous global challenges.

Climate Change is certainly a major global threat putting in danger our collective security. I am aware of the complexities of the international debate on the run-up to the Copenhagen Conference and I acknowledge the legitimacy of the diverse positions around the negotiation table. Nevertheless, I am intimately convinced that the EU and India must be part of the solution to this crucial problem. The EU has already clearly stated the level of its ambition and its strong political will to contribute to a global and widely acceptable solution. I am sure India will find the adequate means to tackle Climate Change endorsing the necessary international commitments without losing sight of its essential interests. EU-India close cooperation on financial support and technological assistance decisions should be instrumental in setting up a broadly accepted post-Kyoto regime. The Great Recession is obviously the second point I would like to make at a time where signs of weak economic recovery start to arise. As a result of the strict and close coordinated policies adopted by all Governments and international institutions the most negative impacts of the economic turmoil and a possible sharp collapse of the world financial system could be avoided. However every kind of euphoria has to be put aside as it can hamper the public expenditure policies being implemented by all nations as well as it might jeopardize the necessary reforming impetus towards global governance and international economic sustainability. In this context a huge sphere of action for EU-India cooperation stands on the adoption of the most adequate solutions to address systemic failures and reform the global financial architecture.

[expand title="Read More"]Moreover, protectionist measures and behaviours should be refrained as it may have a disastrous effect on the yet fragile recovering process. Thus it seems to me that the EU and India should closely cooperate in view of a successful conclusion of the multilateral negotiations at the WTO attaining an ambitious, comprehensive and balanced agreement that fulfils the development objectives of the Round. Similarly, we should also recognize the important benefits for EU and India bilateral economic relationship of a balanced and early conclusion of EU-India Trade and Investment Agreement negotiations, fulfilling the expectations of businesses on both sides on effective tariff elimination as well as attaining a high level of ambition on market access in all domains under negotiation.

ANA: During the visit of your honourable Prime Minister Jose Socrates to New Delhi in December 2007, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reiterated his Government's appreciation for Portugal’s support to India’s candidature for permanent membership of an expanded UN Security Council. Your Excellency, how can India and Portugal work more closely on key international issues?

H.E.: Portugal most appreciates the democratic values and the cooperative role that India plays on our global world. Saying that, I can also recall Portugal’s support to India’s position at the NSG, which put an end to India's ban on nuclear global commerce and paved the way for a more accountable and relevant engagement of India in the world's nuclear disarmament. These supports and the Indian support to Portugal’s candidature to the UN Security Council for the period 2011-12, show the great potential of our cooperation and the willing of our authorities to work together in the international arena. Our two countries have a protocol on politic dialogue, which is an important instrument to expand and enrich our mutual cooperation on many international and bilateral issues.

As I said before, Portugal also recognises the emergence of India as an economic power, besides its population and territorial greatness. Being aware of these realities, Portugal is of the opinion that India must play a new role in the international financial architecture, in accordance with those realities and the prospects of global challenges.

ANA: India's relations with Portugal go back a long way as its western State of Goa has acted as a cultural gateway of India to Portugal. More recently several cultural exchange programmes have been implemented between the two countries. Several Indian universities offer courses in the Portuguese language. Your Excellency, given the shared affinities in art, music, culture, sports and cinema, how important do you consider people to people relations in building stronger ties between the two countries? Also how do you see cultural ties evolving between India and Portugal?

H.E.: The cultural relations between our countries are regulated under the bilateral Cultural Agreement, signed in 1980. Several programmes of cultural cooperation followed and, at present the 6th Programme is in force. One of the principal aims of the cultural cooperation between Portugal and India is the teaching of Portuguese language and culture. Several MoUs with Indian universities, namely University of Delhi (2002), Jadavpur University (2005), Jawaharlal Nehru University (2007), Goa University (2007) and Jamia Millia Islamia (2007), have been signed in order to expand the teaching of Portuguese in these institutions. Being one of the foreign languages in high demand in the Indian service sector, students of the Portuguese language have nowadays a wide choice of employment, besides those who are pursuing research in the Indo-Portuguese field. The educational cooperation between Portuguese and Indian universities is also expanding since a number of MoUs have already been signed between educational institutions of the two countries, for example, IIT Delhi and ISCTE, Portugal, which envisages commencing a joint credit course on Indian studies. I must also highlight another MoU between University of Lisbon and Delhi University under which Hindi is already being taught at the University of Lisbon. In 2008, Portugal also signed an MoU between IGESPAR (Portuguese Institute for Management of Architectural and Archaeological Heritage) and Archaeological Survey of India for cooperation in the fields of restoration and conservation of heritage.

In the cultural field, Portugal has been very actively participating in almost all the major international film festivals held in India. We also organize regularly screening of recent Portuguese films in different Indian cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Pune and Jamshedpur. Moreover, we have also been present at major performing arts festivals, namely Attakkalari in Bangalore, etc., besides organizing, in collaboration with Indian partners, musical concerts (recently a concert of Fado by Joana Amendoeira was held in Delhi and Kolkata in collaboration with ICCR). As you can see, favourable conditions have been created for other collaborations between Portuguese and Indian educational and cultural institutions that will continue to expand and create synergies for wider bilateral projects. I must mention here that many such projects are already in the pipeline.

ANA: During the visit of Mr. Luis Amado, your honourable Minister of Foreign Affairs, to India in July 2008, it was pointed out that like many European nations, Portugal also has an aging population and would be looking towards countries like India to fulfil its skill requirements. Your Excellency, just like Portugal can benefit from the immigration of skilled, young Indians, can you please identify other areas of complementarities between the two countries that can help catapult the bilateral relations to a higher level?

H.E.: It is true that both of our countries have been benefiting from the daily exchange of workers. The flux of people travelling between Portugal and India is remarkable, and I can testify the considerable number of skilled Portuguese and Indians, and not only young people, that everyday travel to India and Portugal to provide services that hold specific technical knowledge or to receive vocational training. These are frequent travellers that several times stay for periods longer than three months. In this context, I should also refer to the existent exchange between researchers of Indian and Portuguese institutions, which have been mainly focused on information and knowledge society but that can be certainly extended to other areas in which both countries are increasing their interest and expertise, like renewable energies.

Finally, I would like to mention the Indian community in Portugal. Around 6.000 Indian citizens are the second largest community from Asia residing in Portugal. But if we consider the People of Indian Origin, the number rises up to around 65.000 people, nowadays fully integrated in our society and filling important positions in different sectors, as politics, diplomacy, judiciary, bank, business and arts, just to name few. These people, by their ties to both of our countries, contribute everyday to strengthen the friendly and solid relationship between Portugal and India.

ANA: The Portuguese President, H.E. Anibal Cavaco Silva during his visit to India in January 2007 said that cooperation between India and Portugal in the economic field has remained way below potential. Your Excellency, what are the reasons for this and can you please shed some light on the extent of improvement taken place in the bilateral economic field since the visit of your honourable President?

H.E.: In my point of view two main factors explain that our economic relations have lagged behind notably during the 90's when the Indian economy was opening up and huge business opportunities were looming. First, the re-establishment of our diplomatic relations in 1975 has coincided with a period of intense internal political process in Portugal that followed the "Carnation Revolution". By that time, and over the subsequent years, the main political goals of the new political regime were to consolidate the democratic system and to overcome the difficult situation faced by the country after the end of the "imperial period" and the disruption of the political and economic autarchy in which Portugal had lived under the previous dictatorship regime. The normalization of our bilateral political relations was also, understandably, a long standing process that remained for several years in Portugal the main objective to achieve and a prior condition to the development of more close and intense economic ties.

Secondly, the 1990 decade was for my country a crucial one in succeeding its integration in the European Union (the country officially joined it in 1986). During this period most of the country's economic efforts have been canalized to prepare and assist Portuguese companies to successfully compete in the European Internal Market. However, the visit of the Portuguese President, Prof. Anibal Cavaco Silva in January 2007 and the subsequent visit of Portuguese Prime Minister José Sócrates in December 2007 have, undoubtedly, opened a new chapter on India and Portugal economic relations. As a result of the high level business networking done during their official visits, several joint ventures and business cooperation agreements have been tied up in different sectors like electric power, industrial moulds, cement, machine tools and finance just to name a few.

As far as our bilateral trade flows are concerned -even if the figures are still clearly below potential - our exports to India have grown in the 2005-08 period (27%) while imports have raised about 29%. These are encouraging signs that our trade bilateral relation is now picking up momentum despite the negative impact of the world economic crisis. Of course, the difference of scale between the two markets, the absence of a more close relationship between both business communities and the lake of information about the numerous business opportunities offered by the Indian and Portuguese markets should continue to be properly addressed.

Portugal disposes today of a brand new generation of companies in cutting-edge sectors like IT, Pharmaceuticals and New and Renewable Energies that are making waves in several niches of the global market. As India is leading the way on some of these sectors there is a huge business potential to be seized on these domains by the companies of both countries.

A last word on investment: Portugal has committed itself with ambitious targets in terms of climate change mitigation being today a frontrunner within the EU on the new and renewable energies generation and technology. Some of the bigger car constructors like Nissan have acknowledged Portugal’s potential in this area and have already decided to invest 250 million Euros on an industrial plant aiming to produce 60.000 lithium-ion car batteries a year. I am aware that some of the most prominent Indian automotive companies are now planning to substantially invest in the new automotive technologies. Allow me to invite them to consider Portugal as an efficient and business friendly destination, eager to match their investment needs and requirements.

ANA: India and Portugal signed an extradition treaty in January, 2007, in New Delhi to control transnational crimes. Even when there was no extradition treaty in place, Portugal handed over dreaded gangster Abu Salem to New Delhi in November 2005 helping India to unravel several of his misdeeds, including his involvement in the March 12, 1993 Mumbai bomb blast. This is more relevant in today's context as many of Abu Salem's alleged partners in terror crimes are holding up in India's neighbouring territory. Your Excellency, in today's terror-infected world, how can countries work together in their fight against terrorism?

H.E.: In fact, terrorism is a threat to all States and to all peoples. Terrorism is criminal and unjustifiable under any circumstances. We live in a world of increasing interdependence, featured for free movement of people, ideas, technology and resources. This is an environment which terrorists abuse to pursue their goals and to produce suffering. The terrorist attacks in the US on September 11, 2001, transformed the debate about international responses to terrorism. The traditional tendency to consider non-State actors that resort to terrorist violence as domestic issue has given way to an increasing focus on bilateral and multilateral responses. The surfacing of transnational terrorism in the 1970’s led to a spate of international law-making to facilitate inter-State co-operation. But only the emergence of Al-Qaeda, with its shocking global reach, led the transnational threat to the top of the agenda of international fora.

The 2008 Mumbai tragic events and the attacks to the Indian Embassy in Kabul, have brutally flagged, once again, the fact that international terrorism is one of the most serious threats to international peace and security. Today, bilateral and multilateral counter-terrorism co-operation is broadly recognized as one of the most important means of fighting terrorism. International responses to terrorism should thus be framed in terms that allow all countries to deal with a diverse set of terrorist threats, while recognizing that the central driver of policy is often the threat posed by internationally operating Islamist terror groups, notably Al-Qaeda.

Given that the current international terrorism threat affects and has roots in many parts of the world beyond Europe, Portugal is engaged countering terrorism through the European Union Counter-Terrorism Strategy, the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and also in the NATO framework. EU and India cooperation in the field of counter-terrorism should be intensified notably under the UN framework. Further steps should be undertaken in view of an earlier finalization of the UN Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism as well as of a full implementation of all UN counter-terrorism conventions and related protocols.