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Foreign relations are essential to Portugal. The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance, an alliance dating from 1373, has been retained throughout its history, making it the oldest alliance still in force in the world. This English–Portuguese alliance was renewed in 1386 with the Treaty of Windsor. The treaty established a pact of mutual support between the countries. This alliance was used in the successive expulsion of the Spanish kings and broke England's isolation from continental Europe during Napoleon's era. The alliance is kept through NATO, a military organization in which both countries are founders along with 10 other countries including the United States of America. Beyond the EU, the country has established a community with its former colonies, the CPLP, and today has very close and prosperous relations with all of them, including close relations with Cape Verde and East Timor. It has a friendship alliance and a dual citizenship treaty with Brazil. The new government has also prioritized relations with neighboring Spain. It also has very good relations with China, due to Macau, a meeting-point of both nations, and century-old diplomatic ties with Morocco. Portugal considers Olivença (Olivenza in Spanish, administrated by Spain) Portuguese territory de jure, based on agreements of both nations in the Vienna Treaty of 1815 , but there are not strong diplomatic actions to take it back. Yet, this issue has been discussed at the Portuguese Parliament as recently as 2004. The Portuguese Armed Forces are divided into three branches: Army, Navy, and Air Force. In the 20th century, Portugal engaged in two major military interventions, namely the 1st World War and the colonial wars between 1961 and 1974. This colonial war was harsh and led to even more dislike of the Estado Novo, in fact, the discontent with this war can be traced as one of the major causes of the regime´s fall in 1974 with the Carnation Revolution, initiated by the military. Portugal has participated in several peacekeeping missions abroad, namely in East Timor, Bosnia, and Kosovo. During the Durão Barroso government the Armed Forces were fully professionalized and obligatory military service was abolished in 2003. There were and still are small elite units of Portuguese armed forces involved in the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts. Involvement in the war in Iraq is not seen positively by many Portuguese. |
Portugal Information: Inside
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