The Concept of Portugal Diplomacy

The Concept of Portugal Diplomacy

The use of representatives of political power in establishing contacts between two political units goes back to the primitive times when the maintenance of tribal relations was carried out through messengers / emissaries, men and women, chosen from among the most important of the tribe, who enjoyed personal immunity in hostile territories). Regarding the importance of the role of diplomats, the Laws of Manu (one of the pillars of Hindu civilization), dating back to the 3rd century BC, referred, moreover, to the form as “peace and its opposite (that is, war) depend on ambassadors, as it is the latter who create and separate allies. It is in your power that business lies that provoke peace or war among kings). Although this nature of an instrument of foreign policy is still maintained today, through the use of intermediaries in relations between States, the style and tasks of diplomacy have been changing over time. The distinction between new and old diplomacy is still inadequate if we consider that this is a whole process of adaptability to contextual changes in the relationship between States resulting from the historical becoming itself. What changes is the historical-contextual insertion or, as it is called, Cambon (1996), "the adornments of diplomacy": the fund will remain the same, because human nature does not change, the nations will have nothing but a way to resolve their differences between them, and the an honest man's word will always be the best instrument that a Government will be able to use its views to assert itself.

In the period leading up to the First World War, relations between States were essentially limited to questions of a political and strategic nature, resulting from conflicts of national interests that would be overcome with recourse or diplomacy or war, depending on whether a resolution avenged through negotiation or the use of armed force In fact, the concept of diplomacy conceived by the Institute for the study of Diplomacy in Georgetown University characterized it as “a means by which countries seek to achieve the objectives of its foreign policies through war preference agreements This period characterized a diplomacy “understood as the personal representation of sovereign to sovereign, (…), dealing with State-to-State relations marked by secrecy (inclusion of secret clauses in agreements and treaties), established bilaterally, and centered almost exclusively on the ambassador, an aristocrat with legal training, fluent in French (at the time the diplomatic language par excellence), with cosmopolitan culture and from literary means (Moita, 2005). At the end of the First World War, the secrecy that marked State-to-State relations, and that it had been understood as prone to trigger hostilities, determined the elimination of the secret clauses of the treaties, democratizing international themes. Gradually, with the creation of international organizations and the recognition of a communion of interests, of countries and groups of countries capable of guaranteeing joint treatment, multilateral diplomacy arises, ceasing to be an exclusive function of the ambassador and extending to society . This evolution is accentuated following the second world conflict, with the formatting of a new international order, made concrete through the formation of the GATT, which regulates the international commercial relationship, and the establishment of the Bretton Woods Agreements, which stabilize the international financial relationship through the establishment of an adjusted parity mechanism based on dollar-gold fixed parity, and the creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. This new context of international relationship allows for an ever greater compatibility between economic and political, determining the emergence of more innovative conceptions of diplomacy, as exemplified by Melissen (1999, p.16) when define diplomacy as the mechanism of representation, communication and negotiation through which the State and other international players conduct their business ”

Note that this conceptual evolution, which goes beyond the relationship between State, does not represent any extinction of bilateral diplomacy, on the contrary, the action multilateral diplomatic policy almost always requires recourse to bilateral negotiation, and remains, today, the natural course of diplomacy. Ambassador Nascimento e Silva, for a long time director of the Rio Branco Institute, explains this apparent dichotomy, emphasizing the essential role to be played by "smooth diplomacy": “Even in the United Nations, where presumably decisions are made in plenary session, as a result of the speeches made and the debates held, it turns out that it is diplomacy, not speeches and votes, that continues to say the last word in solving problems and that the distinction between parliamentary diplomacy and quiet diplomacy is known and practiced more. Those who served the United Nations know the processes called by Secretary General Hammarskjold for quiet diplomacy, used continuously in corridors, lounges and break rooms, at receptions, lunches and dinners, as well as in the offices and homes of the representatives. Despite this introduction of economic objectives in diplomatic praxis, during throughout the Cold War period, diplomacy, political diplomacy, remained guided by prominently political and strategic objectives, associated mainly with issues of defense, strategy and security. designated it “pure diplomacy”, defining it as an “(...) instrument at the service of foreign policy, for the establishment and the development of peaceful contacts between the governments of different states, employment of intermediaries, mutually recognized by the respective parties. ” The collapse of the Bretton Woods system, the subsequent changes in international interactions, the redefinition of power hegemonies, and the emergence of new dynamics of comparative advantages, all go back to the seventies and would determine the formatting of a new international relationship, characterized progressively by interdependence economic. But it would only be with the end of the ideological confrontation, headed by American capitalism and Soviet socialism, that the redefinition would be determined priorities and formats of international relations.

From the perspective of the vectors of strategy, defense and security, although the concerns have remained, their nature has changed to formats that moved away the possibility of direct confrontation between States and approached the risk of other forms of political violence, with progressive emphasis on terrorist practices. Simultaneously, from the perspective of the international economic relationship and benefiting from the geostrategic redefinition, the processes of economic globalization have intensified, with renewed impacts on diplomatic conduct and an emphasis on diplomacy which is now perceived as an instrument “to increase the country's influence, to properly focus policies abroad, and to better manage and increase national visibility. Diplomatic practice has, since then, raised growing concerns regarding the conduct of international business, the respective interlocutors and the organisms of institutional functioning, shaping models of directed Economic Diplomacy for the fulfillment of Foreign Economic Policy objectives

. The functionality of these The models, structured through the interaction between internal decision-making and external negotiations, are thus dependent on the capacity to reconcile political and economic objectives, and articulation between political agents, public entities executors and business actors. In agreement with the conceptual evolution described, proposes to observe the action of Economic Diplomacy according to 3 axes, defined according to dominant objectives

1. "Security action", in which political objectives of conflict resolution predominate, namely through support or economic sanction to the parties involved conflict (eg, the recent case of Zimbabwe);

2. “Regulatory action”, in which political and economic objectives are combined, namely by determining multilateral negotiation in international organizations (eg: World Trade Organization rounds of negotiations);

3. "Competitive action", with objectives of clear economic / commercial dominance (eg: institutional support provided to national companies operating in international markets).

In the Portuguese case, concerns about economic issues in the scope of Foreign Affairs, go back to 1966, with the reform of Franco Nogueira, who came to institute the Directorate-General for Foreign Affairs. Later, given the urgency and urgency of themes related to the subsequent entry of Portugal into the European Economic Community, in 1985, the Directorate-General for Political and Economic Affairs would be created, which would merge bilateral, multilateral and economic directorates-general. But despite an increasing reconciliation between economic and political objectives, it is in the Program of the XII Constitutional Government that, for the first time, there is a specific reference to the development of an "active economic diplomacy" as a general objective of Foreign Policy. This concern remains in subsequent governments, leading to the publication of several legal diplomas that shape different models of Economic Diplomacy, but in a dispersed and more attenuated way. It would only be in 2004, with the approval of Joint Order No. 39/2004 of 6 January, which would resume from articulated form an Economic Diplomacy mechanism, seeking to clarify the intervening agents, organic and functional communication circuits, and respective Skills.