Santos Silva clarifies that the invitation to visit the parliament went to the Ukrainian colleague, not Zelensky

The President of the Assembly of the Republic, Augusto Santos Silva, clarified this Friday that the invitation to visit Lisbon and speak in the Portuguese Parliament was addressed to his Ukrainian counterpart Ruslan Stefanchuk, and not to that country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“Apparently, I made a mistake, I apologize. Apparently, I invited the chairman of the Ukrainian parliament here, and not the president of Ukraine, because I invite the chairmen of the parliament,” Santos Silva said at the end of the plenary session.

“The misunderstanding has been cleared up,” he added.

At the beginning of the plenary session, the Chairman of the Portuguese Parliament said: “I invited the President of Ukraine to visit Lisbon and also to speak at the plenary session in front of our Parliament. I did this, as I said, in accordance with the powers that I have, but also realized that I would have an overwhelming majority in Parliament when I formulated this request, which was immediately accepted.

The President of Parliament also said that he made available “the very great knowledge that exists” in the Assembly, “whether at the level of deputies, the Committee on European Affairs, as well as other committees or at the level of civil servants” in order to support Ukraine in the application process for membership in the European Union.

Augusto Santos Silva then stated that he expected “that the next visit of President Stefanchuk here to the Assembly of the Republic” it would be possible “to sign a memorandum of understanding formalizing this cooperation.”

According to the Regulations, the President of the Assembly of the Republic is obliged, after hearing the conference of leaders, “to invite, by way of exception, national and foreign persons to take their places in the plenary session hall and speak.”

Augusto Santos Silva paid an official visit to Ukraine on Tuesday and Wednesday at the invitation of his colleague Ruslan Stefanchuk, in which he was accompanied by deputies from the PS, PSD, IL and BE benches, but not from Chega or PCP.

“The visit made it possible to hold very important meetings with the President of the Republic of Ukraine, with the Prime Minister, with the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, who kindly invited me to speak at the plenary session of the Verkhovna Rada,” he said at the beginning of the parliamentary work, after the SDP considered this issue.

The President of the Assembly of the Republic also pointed out that the visit “also included a particularly touching moment, namely the opportunity to visit the University of Kiev, where the Portuguese language is taught and studied, and meetings with relevant professors and students.” .

“It was also an expressive way to celebrate World Portuguese Language Day and the cooperation that exists not only at the level of governments and parliaments, but also at the level of academic institutions between the two countries,” he said.

Santos Silva felt that “it was a very important visit”, thanking “the cooperation of everyone in the organization, including the absolute discretion” with which, at his request, “the members of the environment behaved.”

“This was necessary so that the visit was also possible in terms of logistics and security, as the MPs accompanying me can, if they wish, inform the relevant parliamentary groups,” he added.

Earlier, the SDP parliamentary leader asked for the floor to congratulate him on the trip that “the president, accompanied by deputies of this chamber, made to Ukraine”, which “greatly ennobled this parliament.”

“And we welcome the return of everyone at a time when the conflict in Ukraine is escalating, but we hope that it can be completed as quickly as possible,” said Joaquim Miranda Sarmento.