The celebrations of the Day of Portugal, Camões, and Portuguese Communities, with the participation of the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister, will take place between Sunday and Tuesday, from Portalegre to Mindelo, in Cape Verde. Commemorations of 10 from Portalegre to Cape Verde
According to a program released by the Portuguese embassy in Praia City, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and António Costa will have an intense program in Cape Verde, divided by the islands of Santiago and São Vicente, with eight agenda items in a day and a half.
On Monday, June 10, the head of state will speak at a military ceremony in Portalegre in the morning, and then travel with the Prime Minister and President of Cape Verde, Jorge Carlos Fonseca, to the City of Praia, where he will make his second speech, at the end of the day, in a reception to the Portuguese community.
In Cape Verde, there are a total of about 18,000 Portuguese, scattered over several islands. This ceremony, with musical performances by the Cape Verdean singer Tito Paris and the Portuguese fadista Raquel Tavares, will take place at the Portuguese School of Cape Verde, where the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister will return the next morning to inaugurate the sports park.
On Tuesday, however, it will be concentrated in Mindelo, on the island of São Vicente, with a program that includes a visit to an exhibition of contemporary art, a walking tour and a socializing with young sportsmen in the company of the footballer Eliseu, former Benfica player, who joined the national team of the European champions in 2016 and has dual nationality, Portuguese and Cape Verdean.
The program will end with a reception to the Portuguese community in a hotel in Mindelo and also includes lunch with local authorities on a frigate of the Portuguese Navy and a military parade of the Armed Forces of Cape Verde that will integrate a representation of Portugal.
Likewise, there will be a representation of Cape Verde to participate in the parade of the Portuguese Armed Forces, at the Military Commemorative Ceremony of the Day of Portugal in Portalegre, in which will address, besides Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the journalist João Miguel Tavares, who is natural of this city and chairs the organizing committee of these celebrations of 10 June.
This ceremony will bring together the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, the President of the Assembly of the Republic, Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, as well as the Cape Verdean Head of State, Jorge Carlos Fonseca, according to a statement from the Presidency of the Republic.
The celebrations of Portugal Day in Portalegre will begin the day before, Sunday, June 9, in the morning, with the presence of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa in a ceremony of the hoisting of the national flag, next to the Monument to the Dead of the Great War.
Afterward, there will be a presentation in the Convent of Santa Clara of greetings from the diplomatic corps accredited in Portugal, followed by lunch and a visit by the Head of State and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces to the Portalegre Tapestry Museum.
In 2016, the year he took office as President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa launched an unprecedented model of celebrations of the Day of Portugal, Camões and Portuguese Communities, agreed with the Prime Minister, António Costa, in which celebrations begin in national territory and extend to a foreign country with immigrant communities.
In that year, the Day of Portugal was celebrated between Lisbon and Paris. In 2017 the celebrations were held in Porto and in the Brazilian cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. And in 2018 they divided between Ponta Delgada, in the Azores, and the cities of Boston, Providence and New Bedford, on the East Coast of the United States of America. This year, they take place in Portalegre and in Cape Verde.
