Government considers US inquiry to Portuguese universities “contrary to the constitution”
The government considered this Monday that the inquiry made by the US authorities to Portuguese universities to influence inclusion policies is « contrary to the constitution. » However, Washington has sovereignty about the supports
Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel said the government « could not do such an inquiry, because it is contrary to the Constitution, the Portuguese government could not ask such questions. »
As part of a ministerial meeting in Luxembourg, Paulo Rangel added that “a foreign government cannot do” an inquiry like what Washington did to Portuguese universities, trying to condition the inclusion policies of each of these institutions under penalty of loss of support.
Universities considered “inadequate and intolerable” the questions and the scope of this questionnaire. The government greeted the position of the institutions, saying that they made « the right decision », but warned that nothing can be done on the cuts of support.
This is because the US « is sovereign » and decide what kind of supports and who they want to give them.
The president of the Council of Rectors of the Portuguese Universities, Paulo Jorge Ferreira, said that the Portuguese universities that have so far benefited from the American Corner program received an unexpected communication from the US Embassy, with the unilateral termination of the subsidies in force if a form was not fulfilled with various questions.
From it were questions such as “if they do not work with entities associated with communist, socialist, or totalitarian parties”, or they were funded by the Popular Republic of China, including the Confucius, Russian, Cuba, or Iran Institutes.
