Portugal makes cautious move towards recognising Palestinian state

Portugal's centre-right government will consult the main political parties and conservative President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa about the potential recognition of a Palestinian state, Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said on Thursday.

Unlike neighbouring Spain, whose leftist government recognised Palestinian statehood in May 2024 alongside Ireland and Norway and called on other EU countries to do the same, Portugal has taken a more cautious approach, saying it wanted to work out a common position with other EU countries first.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced last week his country, a heavyweight in the EU, plans to recognise a Palestinian state, becoming the first major Western state to do so.

His move came amid a rising global outcry over starvation and devastation in Gaza as Israel wages war against Hamas militants there. Britain and Canada have since said they could also recognise a Palestinian state.

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"The government decided to promote consultations with the president and the political parties represented in parliament with a view to consider the recognition of the Palestinian state in a process that could be concluded ... at the U.N. General Assembly in September," Montenegro said in a statement.

About 144 of the 193 member states of the United Nations recognise Palestine as a state, including most of the global south as well as Russia, China and India.

But only a handful of the 27 European Union members do so, mostly former Communist countries as well as Sweden and Cyprus.

The U.N. General Assembly approved the de facto recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine in November 2012 by upgrading its observer status at the world body to "non-member state" from "entity".