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General Policy Guidelines on International Relations (GLORI)

Conditioning factors

A small country like Portugal needs a significant foreign policy to ensure its political independence, which calls for a higher economic profile for the country at global level, having regard to the following conditioning factors:

1. The adoption of a model of economic development based on higher investment in the export sector, entrepreneurialism and scientific and technological innovation as the pillars of higher and more sustainable economic growth;

2. The increasing interdependence of national economies and the consequent imperative of good economic and financial governance;

3. The formation of economic blocs based on regional cooperation and on the emergence of new powers, generating competitive opportunities in trade and investment;

4. The growing importance of multilateralism in the resolution of global problems such as combating poverty, the pursuit of peace in various war theatres, the management of climate change, combating organised crime and terrorism, and control of epidemics.

Direction

The direction of Portugal’s domestic policy choices only becomes discernible and distinctive in the outlining of a foreign policy. It is not sufficient to take the view that it should be based on the situation of Europe and the Lusophone community, updating the role of the Portuguese Discoveries in the first of the three waves of globalisation. What is also required is an external economic policy capable of coordinating capital and development.

The declaration of the summit of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries in Bissau is a good example of a global partnership based on mutual understanding.

The identity of the State rests on the European, Euro-Atlantic and Lusophone pillars. Its foreign policy should respond to the demands imposed by the international system, and by national interests and the values that underpin them.

The European Union underlines the Portuguese idea of Europe in the world, confirming the direction of domestic policy choices. Strategy The main objective of Portuguese foreign policy should be the creation of favourable conditions for the economic growth and development of Portugal, linking foreign policy as closely as possible to domestic policy, especially in terms of the internationalisation of the Portuguese economy by means of the following strategic priorities:

1. Ensuring national security;

2. Continuing to be in the vanguard of the construction of the European project, and broadening the Euro-Atlantic link;

3. Giving priority to relations in the Lusophone space, with emerging powers and within regional organisations in which they occur;

4. Promoting global governance from the European, Euro-Atlantic or Lusophone pillars.