At least the journalist from newspapers Expresso were invited by the swedish foreign ministry to go Sweden
This is another article published today by
Jornal de Notícias:
Jornal de Notícias - Reis da Suécia voltam a Lisboa 22 anos após a primeira visita
The King and Queen of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustaf and Silvia, are about to land on Portuguese teritory, 22 years after their first State visit. The monarch will meet again his old "friend" Cavaco Silva, the now President of the Republic, who occupied the Prime-minister position back then.
From the 1986 visit, the King and Queen remember a "beautiful country" near the sea, which is more and more visited by Swedes to vacation and play golf (last year, nearly 140.000 Swedish citizens have visited our country: 115.000 tourists and 2.700 business trips). From Portugal, Carl XVI Gustaf remembers the particularly "great diversity of wines" for a small country like ours, while Queen Silvia remembers the "pretty characteristic tiles".
During their collective interview to the Portuguese journalists in the Royal Palace of Stockholm, Queen Silvia says that "the Swedish people look at Portugal as a sea-country. Many had visited Expo 98 about the Oceans and I think it was a good window for the country. Lisbon is a very beautiful city".
It's still the concern about the Environment and a more efficient use of renewable ressources (in particular, solar and aeolic energies) that gives the motto to their return to Portugal. The global heating is one of the subjects that dominatesthe the political agenda in Sweden, which faced this year the hottest Winter in 250 years.
Solar energy is actually given protagonism during this three-days visit to Lisboa, Évora and Monsaraz, during which the monarchs will be accompanied by their ministers of Environment and of Migration and Politic Asylum (Andreas Carlgren and Tobias Billström respectively), as well as by a group of Swedish businessmen, related to environmental area.
Besides the visit to the National Institute of Engineering, Technology and Innovation (tomorrow afternoon), in order to to hear about the national programs for exploitation of solar and aeolic energies, the Swedish delegation will participate in a symposium about renewable energy, at the Electricity Museum, and will visit, on Wednesday, a solar energy facility in Évora.
"We are going to visit a solar cell factory, in order to see what we can learn from Portugal. Our team of investigators from the University of Uppsala is also studying this question of solar energy, but I think that we can learn more", said the King.
While in Portugal the construction of nuclear centrals is starting to be discussed, Sweden is doing the opposite path, having determined, some years ago, not to allow new nuclear facilities. The king recognizes that nuclear energy is a sensible issue in his Nordic country, where two out of the 12 existing centrals have been locked up: "60% of our energy comes from our 10 nuclear centrals. Simultaneously, we are investing in aeolic energy, which corresponds to 2% of the energy used in our country", says the monarch.
King Carl Gustav drives a car moved by etanol, and like the majority of his people, he is particularly sensible to the environmental issues. Great part of the Swedish people recycle their garbage and use public transportations (in Stockholm, 75% of the population go to work by public transportation). The purchase of ecological cars moved by etanol has increased, thanks to governmental and regional incentives. Carl XVI Gustaf, who is an apassionate lover for cars, is also among those who already drive cars moved by etanol: "I want to prepare the Future for the second generation of etanol cars. I understand that the great concern on the environmental level will be the issue of transportations", stressed the Swedish King, despite the current debate on the production etanol (which takes large extends of land).
Jornal de Notícias - Rainha Silvia fala português
In her perfect Portuguese, tempered with a Brazilian accent, Queen Silvia evokes the day when José Saramago was awarded with the Nobel prize. "It was a fantastic moment, because the Portuguese language is so rich! The whole world heard the voice of a Portuguese writer", remembered the Queen, who has Portuguese as her second language, due to her Brazilian mother.
