Portugal’s President António José Seguro and Prime Minister Luís Montenegro will attend the 30th Ibero-American Summit in Madrid on Wednesday and Thursday. The meeting will also welcome António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, and António Costa, president of the European Council, as special guests.
The summit’s theme is “Ibero-America. Together we build our Community. Together we project it into the future and the world.” According to the organizers, the meeting aims to reaffirm the forum’s political role and strengthen cooperation among its member states.
It will be the first summit of the community attended by Seguro since he became president in March 2025, and the first attended by Montenegro as prime minister. Portugal was represented at the previous summit, held in Ecuador in 2024, by then-President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
A joint press conference by Portugal’s president and prime minister is expected to take place on Thursday, following the summit. Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel, who will also represent Portugal at the meeting, usually attends the event.
The press conference is expected to be the first public appearance shared by Seguro and Montenegro after Monday’s Council of State meeting, which focused on social cohesion, including housing. It also follows Sunday’s police operations, after which the president asked the government and the Ombudsman’s Office for detailed information and explanations about the events during demonstrations in Lisbon and Porto.
Angola is due to be formally accepted as a permanent observer country of the Ibero-American community, which comprises 22 countries. The summits are held every two years. Portugal has proposed hosting the 2030 edition, a proposal that was accepted; the 2028 summit will take place in Honduras.
The Ibero-American community includes Portugal, Spain and Andorra, along with 19 Latin American countries. Its first summit was held in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1991. The meetings were annual until 2014, when they began taking place every two years.
Portugal has generally been represented at the summits by both its head of state and head of government, including the meetings in Cartagena de Indias in 2016, Andorra in 2021 and Santo Domingo in 2023. The president attended alone in Antigua, Guatemala, in 2018, and at the latest summit in Cuenca, Ecuador.
Sources: Observador.