Portuguese citizens already have designated desks at Luanda airport vs. Angolan power in Portugal
Portuguese citizens who enter Angola through Luanda Airport now have designated desks for entry procedures, a spokesman for the Foreign National and Migration Services (SME) told Portuguese news agency Lusa. Lusa, 2013-09-15 22:23:00
The reciprocal interest that exists between Angola and Portugal, albeit for different reasons, is once again clear.
This measure, which is still provisional in nature, should be concluded by the end of this year, when the RAPID system (AUTOMATIC RECOGNITION OF PASSENGERS IDENTIFIED BY DOCUMENT) is installed in the Angolan capital, as it was in Lisbon in August.
The Automatic Recognition of Passengers Identified by Document (RAPID) is a pioneer system which enables passengers with an electronic passport to be channelled automatically.
As Simão Milagres says, “INITIALLY WE ARE IMPLEMENTING THE PROCESS AT INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT LEVEL […], BY DESIGNATING SPECIFIC DESKS TO ALLOW FOR SMOOTH AND SPEEDY CHANNELLING OF PORTUGUESE CITIZENS “.
The new system was inaugurated on 12 August last at Portela Airport in Lisbon at a ceremony where both the Portuguese Minister of Internal Affairs, Miguel Macedo, and the Angolan Minister of the Interior, Ângelo Veiga Tavares, were present.
The RAPID system is part of a pilot project developed by the Portuguese Immigration and Border Services and the Angolan SME, with the objective of facilitating the movement of Portuguese citizens in Angola and Angolans in Portugal with the necessary security conditions for both countries.
This measure comes within the scope of the reciprocal relationship between Angola and Portugal and is a clear attempt at the approximation and debureacratisation which the two peoples desire so much, aiming to eliminate the long queues at the Immigration Desks at the airports of the two countries, and is yet another measure which speaks to the weight of “Angolan investment in Portugal, five Vasco da Gama bridges”, or the “package of State cuts agreed with the Troika by the end of 2015”, or, in other words, the “2.6 thousand million euros in companies quoted on the Portuguese Stock Exchange”.
Margarida Asseiceira