My Take | Brexit helps tilt Portugal towards China
- Beijing needs all the friends it can get within the European Union in the face of professed Western unity
One of the consequences of Brexit has been to disrupt Britain’s ties with Portugal, often described as the world’s oldest allies. The history is fascinating; Charles II’s Portuguese wife introduced the English to drinking tea as a fashion statement. But its immediate significance today may be to tilt another European Union member state towards China.
Portugal and China’s respective ambassadors, Jose Augusto Duarte and Zhao Bentang, were sharing a bit of bromance this week in a webinar to promote the upcoming China International Import Expo.
This came after Pedro Siza Vieira, the former deputy prime minister and minister of the economy – whose tenure finished at the end of March – complained about the damage caused by Brexit to bilateral relations. “Brexit has had an adverse impact,” he told the British press.
“For Portugal, Brexit was not good news. The UK is one of our main trading partners, one of the main investment partners.”
Last year, the value of British exports to Portugal dropped by 56 per cent, compared with a fall of 10.3 per cent from across the other 26 EU member countries. While Portugal’s sales to the EU rose by 1.3 per cent, those to Britain fell by more than 15 per cent.
Siza Vieira continued: “We are an Atlantic country, not a continental country. It is a basic part of our identity and foreign policy to have a close relationship with the UK and US. So [Brexit] is complicated for us. This is not something we were happy with.”