Portugal is planning to hold a meeting during the Portuguese EU Council presidency with the new US President, Joe Biden, according to Lusa news agency.
“We are working hard with the European External Action Service [EEAS] and with the president of the European Council himself to see if we can still meet with President Biden during our semester,” Ana Paula Zacarias said in a webinar, focused on the priorities of the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU).
When Joe Biden was elected as President of the United States last November, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, invited Biden to a meeting with the 27 EU Member States in Brussels. This meeting “is not yet excluded,” according to Paula Zacarias. She added that the presidency of the Council of the EU was doing everything in its hand to make this meeting still happen.
“It is possible that there is still a meeting, especially if we can articulate it with a NATO summit,” she pointed out, adding that “the heads of state and government had a meeting with the NATO secretary general [Jens Stoltenberg ] just yesterday [Friday] ”to study how to organize an event in this sense.
In addition, “the Portuguese presidency is working hard to make the conference on the Future of Europe happen,” she highlighted, adding that she hoped that “in the coming weeks” the EU will have “good news” in this regard, Lusa reported.
