The Portuguese president welcomed Ms Leuthard with military honours at the Praça do Império and after they made their way to the Bélem palace.
In the afternoon, Doris Leuthard took a trip around Lisbon’s historical centre, accompanied by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and also visited the Champalimaud Foundation. The visit ended with an official dinner at the Ajuda Palace in the evening.
The main objective of the visit was to give visibility to and deepen the close ties that have existed between Switzerland and Portugal for many decades.
There are more than 3,700 Swiss nationals living in Portugal, most of whom have dual nationality.
There were more than 402,000 Portuguese registered with the consulate in Switzerland in September 2017 and the Portuguese community was considered the third largest foreign community in the country.