European Union and United States welcome Montenegro and hope to strengthen cooperation with Portugal

The European Union and the United States congratulated Luís Montenegro, who stated, at the inauguration ceremony on Tuesday, that he hoped to govern throughout the legislature, despite the country’s political instability.

“Congratulations, Montenegro, for taking office today as Prime Minister of Portugal. I look forward to our cooperation. Let’s join forces for a strong Portugal in a strong Europe”, wrote the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, on the social network X.

The new Portuguese Prime Minister was also congratulated by the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, who called for a strengthening of relations between Washington and Lisbon, “which celebrates the return to democracy 50 years ago”, in a message published on the same social network .

Montenegro’s government is made up of 17 ministers, seven of which are women, making it the third government with the highest female representation in the history of Portugal. The majority of ministers belong to the PSD, led by the prime minister.

At the end of March, the 16th legislature of the Portuguese parliament began with the inauguration of 230 elected deputies.

The Democratic Alliance, formed by the PSD and the CDS, obtained 80 deputies against 78 for the PS, both far short of the 116 seats needed for an absolute majority.

The two largest parties appealed to each other’s State responsibility to pass the main laws and measures.

PSD and PS agreed last week, after three failed votes, to preside over the Assembly of the Republic on a rotating basis for the next four years, thus putting an end to the impasse that had set in, after the far-right party Chega did not vote in favor the name of José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, as he had promised.

In the March legislative elections, Chega more than quadrupled the number of seats in the AR, going from 12 to 50 deputies.