Community of Portuguese Language Countries

Formation, objectives and member states

CPLP is a multilateral forum created to deepen mutual friendship and cooperation among its member states.

Through successive enlargements, the Union has grown from the seven founding states—Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, and São Tomé and Príncipe—to the current nine, with the self-determination of Timor-Leste in 2002 and the accession of Equatorial Guinea in 2014 at the 10th summit in Dili, Timor-Leste with the issuance of the Dili Declaration. The community is growing from a cultural background to a geopolitical and economical community, as the CPLP is the fourth largest producer of oil in the world and the growing number of larger nations attempting to enter the organization, such as Turkey and Indonesia. In 2016, CPLP revised its cooperation protocol in defense, affirming the organization in the promotion of peace and security.

CPLP prime objectives are:

In 2005, during a meeting in Luanda, the ministers of culture of the member states declared the 5 May as the Lusophone Culture Day (Dia da Cultura Lusófona in Portuguese).

Associate observers

In July 2006, during the Bissau summit, Equatorial Guinea and Mauritius were admitted as Associate Observers along with 17 International associations and organizations considered as Consultative Observers. On 23 July 2014, Equatorial Guinea was admitted as CPLP member.

Mauritius, which was discovered by Portuguese explorers and maintains strong connections with Mozambique, also obtained associate observer status in 2006. In 2008, Senegal, with historical connections to Portuguese colonisation in Casamance, was admitted as Associate Observer.

In July 2014, during the Dili summit, the Heads of State and Government approved a resolution that grants Georgia, Japan, Namibia and Turkey the status of Associate Observers. Japan has had historical contacts with the Portuguese language in the 16th and 17th century, and today has connections to the Lusophone world through Japanese Brazilians in Brazil and Japan. Namibia has had extensive contact to the Lusophone world due to its location just south of Angola.

Three European nations: Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia were admitted as observors along with Uruguay in the 2016 summit.

Significance

The Portuguese-speaking countries are home to 267 million people located across the globe but having cultural similarities and a shared history. The CPLP nations have a combined area of about 10,742,000 square kilometres (4,148,000 sq mi), which is larger than Canada.

Since its formation, the CPLP has helped to solve problems in São Tomé and Príncipe and in Guinea-Bissau, because of coups d'état in those countries. These two problems were solved, and in fact, have helped these two countries to take economic reforms (in the case of São Tomé) and democratic ones (in the case of Guinea-Bissau).

The leaders of the CPLP believe that peace in Angola and Mozambique as well as East Timor's independence favors the further development of the CPLP and a strengthening of multilateral cooperation.

Since many children in rural areas of Lusophone Africa and East Timor are out-of-school youth, the education officials in these regions seek help from Portugal and Brazil to increase the education to spread Portuguese fluency (like establishing Instituto Camões language center branches in main cities and rural towns), as Portuguese is becoming one of the main languages in Southern Africa, where it is also taught in Namibia and South Africa.

In many developing Portuguese-speaking nations, Portuguese is the language of government and commerce which means that Portuguese-speaking people from African nations can work and communicate with others in different parts of the world, especially in Portugal and Brazil, where the economies are stronger. Many leaders of Portuguese-speaking nations in Africa are fearful that language standards do not meet the fluency required and are therefore making it compulsory in schools so that a higher degree of fluency is achieved and young Africans will be able to speak a world language that will help them later in life.

Angola has not yet signed the most recent accord on the orthography of the Portuguese language, and has asked other PALOP countries to support it in discussions on various points of that accord with Portugal.

Governance

The Organization’s Executive Secretariat is responsible for designing and implementing the CPLP's projects and initiatives. It is located in Lisbon, Portugal. The Executive Secretary has a two-year mandate, and can be re-elected once.

The CPLP's guidelines and priorities are established by a biannual (or whenever requested by 2/3 of the member states) Conference of Heads of State and Government and the Organization’s plan of action is approved by the Council of Foreign Ministers, which meets every year. There are also monthly meetings of the Permanent Steering Committee that follow specific initiatives and projects.

The CPLP is financed by its member states.

Consultative observers

Besides Associate Observer states, the CPLP also engages civil society organizations as Consultative Observers from various CPLP and from regions of non-CPLP countries (Spain and China), as well as pan-Lusophone bodies.

Macau accession

Macau was the last Portuguese overseas territory to be decolonized, and returned to China in 1999. It still retains traces of the Portuguese culture and Portuguese is an official language of the territory. In 2006, during the II Ministerial meeting between China and Portuguese Speaking Countries, the CPLP Executive Secretary and Deputy ambassador Tadeu Soares invited the Chief Executive of the Government of Macao Special Administrative Region, Edmund Ho Hau Wa, to request the Associate Observer status for Macau. The Government of Macao Special Administrative Region has not yet formalized this request.

Equatorial Guinea

When the CPLP was formed, Equatorial Guinea asked for observer status. Equatorial Guinea (Portuguese: Guiné Equatorial) was a Portuguese colony from the 15th to 18th centuries and has some territories where Portuguese-based creole languages are spoken and cultural connections with São Tomé and Príncipe and Portugal are felt. Also, the country has recently cooperated with Portuguese-speaking African countries and Brazil at an educational level. At the CPLP summit of July 2004, in São Tomé and Príncipe, the member states agreed to change the statutes of the community to accept states as associate observers. Equatorial Guinea then engaged in discussion for full membership. In June 2010, Equatorial Guinea asked to be admitted as full member. At its 8th summit in Luanda in July 2010, the CPLP decided to open formal negotiations with Equatorial Guinea about full membership in the CPLP. At its 10th summit in Dili in July 2014, Equatorial Guinea was admitted as CPLP member.