“The new president-elect is an independent personality who is well-placed in the European democratic scenario and has made the defence of Europe and defence of liberal democracy his essential focus in the presidential, elections.” Augusto Santos Silva told Lusa News Agency.
Van der Bellen, an independent candidate supported by the Austrian Green Party, defeated far-right candidate Norbert Hofer in Sunday’s presidential election.
According to the Portuguese foreign minister, “it is positive that Austria solved its political stalemate, because of the need to repeat the elections and the postponement of the repeated election.”
Commenting on the rise of far-right parties in Europe, Santos Silva noted that in Europe, “there are many millions of people in favour of the rule of law, of liberal democracy, of peaceful interaction between different people, religions, ethnicities, religions and migrations,” and “they should work together based on that great common platform to recover the dominant influence it had in Europe and that Europe needs.”
Asked about how that could happen, Santos Silva said the Portuguese Socialist Party “has given a good example, in Europe and the world, of how it is possible to develop a political platform, which nobody doubts is European, liberal and democratic, committed to employment, economic growth and social equality.”
TPN/Lusa