TOAST FOR PORTUGUESE DINNER
Dr. Mario SoaresPrime Minister, you are welcome here tonight. I have the happiest memories of the many kindnesses shown to me in Portugal earlier this year.
You are, of course, no stranger to Britain. Not only have you come as Prime Minister of your country and as the leader of your party but in earlier days as an individual fighting in the struggle to restore democracy to your country.
On one of these visits, in this very room nearly eight years ago, you spoke of your certainty that, and I shall quote your words:
“the United Kingdom upholds a position of permanent and active solidarity with Portugal.”
Mr. Prime Minister, you can still enjoy that certainty. It has a long pedigree. Indeed it is an astonishingly long period of six centuries since the treaty of friendship was drawn up between our two countries. Even St. Paul 's here in London, where the treaty was signed, has been rebuilt. There have been very few constants over those years. But our alliance is one of them.
Our alliance had its origins, in the fourteenth century, in an already flourishing trading relationship. When I was in Portugal in April, I warned that British business had been [end p1] neglecting opportunities in Portugal and needed to be more aggressive. It appears that I was heeded. In recent months there have been substantial new investments including those in sugar refining and the paper industry.
There has also been a steady flow of Ministers and businessmen between our countries.
In July we welcomed your Secretary of State for Energy and his team who looked at our nuclear power engineering industry. A little later, Geoffrey Pattie travelled to Portugal with a group of businessmen with a special interest in computers and communications equipment. A trade mission, some 40-strong, sponsored by the London Chamber of Commerce and Lloyds Bank International, has just returned from Lisbon and Oporto. In a few days's time, a group of British companies will be in Portugal to offer our expertise and equipment in the increasingly important field of energy conservation.
And the highest point of these exchanges will be reached next March when Her Majesty The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh will be visiting Portugal.
The matter which I know is of vital concern to you at this time is the success of the negotiations for your membership of the Community. I know that the way has been hard, but this is not surprising. Simultaneously with the enlargement negotiations, the Community has been sorting out a [end p2] very complex set of budgetary problems, and setting a course for future development.
We hope that the solemn political statement signed in Dublin on 24 October will, as the Irish Prime Minister said on behalf of the Community, give the impetus necessary for us all to complete negotiations by the end of the year, so as to meet the date of 1 January 1986 for the new enlargement of the Community.
The overall prize for Europe of bringing your country and Spain into the fold of its most influential group of states is one which has been worth all the efforts which we and you have made to this end. You can be sure of our constant support in the last phase of the negotiations.
Mr. Prime Minister, we can look back on more than six hundred years of friendship and harmony. That is the gift of our forefathers. Our task is to ensure the continuation of that friendship and alliance.
I propose the toast of Gen Antonior Eanesthe President of the Portuguese Republic.