Luís Montenegro was speaking before the start of the first meeting of the National Council for Migration and Asylum, a consultative body created by the current PSD/CDS-PP Government and which will be chaired by the socialist António Vitorino, who spoke alongside the Prime Minister.

“We are not a country where hatred and racial issues have a nature of the concern, which does not mean that we are unaware of some phenomena that exist in this area”, said the head of government, in a statement in which he did not answer questions.

Without directly referring to the disturbances in several neighbourhoods in Greater Lisbon following the death of Odair Moniz, shot by a PSP agent a week ago, Montenegro argued that in Portugal “the vast majority of the community lives well with those who seek us out and knows how to separate very well phenomena in some circumstances, some feeling of insecurity of what truly matters, which is integration”.

“We are fortunately a country where the phenomena of trampling on dignity and human rights is residual”, he said, highlighting that Portugal is a country that “is a reference in the international context of respect for human rights, of respect for the dignity of people”.

With this Council, he explained, the Government intends to deepen the way in which the country offers opportunities to those who seek it either to study or to work, whether “with high qualifications for concrete business and economic development projects” or just “in search of better living conditions.”

Montenegro said that the government is concerned with “suppressing and eradicating” problems related to international migratory routes of human trafficking or the exploitation of vulnerable circumstances “by organised networks of a criminal nature”.

“We want to have a migration policy that is up to par with those that are the pillars of our society, to be able to have regulated migration and, as a result, enable people to find the opportunities they are looking for in our country”, he stated.

The Prime Minister once again defended the entry of immigrants through educational institutions and the family group as “two main beams of the reception and integration policy” of the current Government.

“It is from this perspective that we must look at those who seek us out as future new Portuguese: those who come, who settle, who form their families, their bases here and will make their presence in our community endure as effective members of it”, he highlighted.

At the end of the statements, the prime minister was asked about the criminal complaint filed against some Chega leaders, including André Ventura, for statements about the death of Odair Moniz, but said that answers would be given on another occasion.