Seguro Addresses the Council of Europe on Wednesday, Fifty Years After Portugal Signed the Human Rights Convention
The President is in Strasbourg for two days to mark half a century of membership. He speaks to the Parliamentary Assembly at noon on Wednesday and then visits the European Court of Human Rights.
President António José Seguro travels to Strasbourg on Tuesday for two days of events marking 50 years since Portugal joined the Council of Europe, the continent's main human rights organisation. The high point comes on Wednesday at noon, when he addresses the plenary of the Council's Parliamentary Assembly.
Parliament gave its consent to the trip on 18 September, as the Constitution requires whenever the head of state leaves the country. The resolution, published in the Diário da República on Monday, says the visit is at the invitation of the President of the Parliamentary Assembly, Petra Bayr.
The programme
According to the agenda published by the Presidency, Seguro begins on Tuesday evening at 18:00 local time (17:00 in Lisbon) with a meeting at Portugal's official residence in the city with Portuguese staff of the Council of Europe and with the Portuguese delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly.
On Wednesday he arrives at the Council at 10:00 for meetings with Petra Bayr and with the Secretary General, Alain Berset, the former Swiss president. At 12:00 he speaks to the Assembly in plenary. He then visits the Portugal Room inside the Council's building at 13:00, and at 14:45 goes to the European Court of Human Rights, where he meets its President, Mattias Guyomar.
Fifty years since 1976
Portugal joined the Council of Europe on 22 September 1976 and signed the European Convention on Human Rights the same day, two years after the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974 and months after the current Constitution came into force. The Council, founded in 1949, is separate from the European Union and has 46 member states, including all 27 EU countries.
Marking the anniversary last week in a message on the Presidency's website, Seguro said joining had been "an unequivocal choice for the consolidation of democracy, for civil, cultural, economic, political and social human rights, and for the rule of law". He called the European Court of Human Rights "the touchstone" of the organisation and said the Convention system was "in so many cases, the last guarantor of the human rights of citizens in Europe". Lisbon hosts the Council's North-South Centre, which works on global education and youth cooperation.
Why the Court matters to residents
The Court in Strasbourg hears complaints from anyone within the jurisdiction of a member state, whatever their nationality, once they have used every remedy available in the national courts. That includes foreign residents in Portugal. Cases against Portugal have long centred on the slowness of its justice system, with the Court repeatedly finding breaches of the right to a decision within a reasonable time.
The visit comes days after Seguro's audience with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican, making it his second trip abroad in little more than a week.
