Europe
CPLP (Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa)
With a goal of deepening “solidarity” among Portuguese-speaking countries and making Portuguese an official language in the international community, the first summit meeting of CPLP (Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa) was held in Lisbon, Portugal in 1996. The secretariat of CPLP is located in Lisbon. Joint projects are being conducted in areas such as (1) development assistance (police and justice, medical care, education), (2) mutual cooperation toward democratization (dispatch of election-monitoring teams, etc.), (3) exchanges between universities, and efforts related to visa and migration issues, and (4) cultural events.
Participating Countries
(1) Member countries (9 Portuguese-speaking countries)
Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, Sao Tome and Principe, Timor-Leste
(2) Observers
Japan, Georgia, Mauritius, Namibia, Senegal, Turkey, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Uruguay, Luxembourg, Andorra, United Kingdom, Argentina, Serbia, Chile, France, Italy, Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI)
Japan's Efforts
Prime Minister Abe expressed Japan’s intention to apply for participation in CPLP as an observer when he visited Portugal in May, 2014, which was the first visit to Portugal by an incumbent Japanese Prime Minister. Japan’s participation as an observer was unanimously approved at the CPLP summit meeting in July 2014.
It is expected that cooperation with CPLP member countries in a wide range of areas such as democratization, economic growth, and development cooperation will be further advanced through Japan’s participation in CPLP as an observer.