Postcolonial Portuguese Relations

Résumé 0

This paper traces the evolution of Portugal’s relations with its former African colonies over the thirty years since independence. It begins by identifying the special place held by Africa in the Portuguese political imagination and shows that relationships with the former colonies are still heavily influenced by this heritage. The past three decades have witnessed deep transformations in Portuguese foreign policy as a result of the end of the empire and the entry into the European Union. Yet Africa reappears systematically as an important point of reference in Portuguese foreign policy despite the lack of anything that might be called an Africa policy. The paper looks at Portugal’s various relations with each of its former colonies, all of which show a tendency toward deeper and stronger links over the years. Development aid is mentioned as an example of Portuguese difficulties in developing policy instruments, and the emergence of the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries is shown, in both its strengths and fragilities, to be evidence of the emergence of an era in which the scars of the colonial period are much less important than in the past.