UK and Portugal celebrate world’s longest diplomatic alliance

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The Minister of Foreign Affairs will join His Majesty the King in honoring the 650-year-old diplomatic alliance. Tomorrow, he will meet the Portuguese Foreign Minister to sign a new agreement on international development. The UK and Portugal share the world’s oldest diplomatic alliance still in effect today.

This week, the UK and Portugal will celebrate the 650th anniversary of their alliance, an unprecedented milestone in the history of diplomacy. June 16 marks 650 years since the signing of the Treaty of London in 1373, an alliance originally between King Edward III of England and King Ferdinand and Queen Eleanor of Portugal.

A service will be held at the Queens Chapel in central London where Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, alongside His Majesty the King, the President of the Portuguese Republic and the Portuguese Foreign Minister, will celebrate historic ties . An original copy of the treaty, signed nearly 20 years after the plague struck Europe and committing nations to peace, friendship and alliance, will be on display in the national archives.

Prior to the events, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said:

The rich history between the UK and Portugal says something special about how we see the world and how our people get along. No other relationship on the planet has survived the test of time as well as ours.

We are now building on this solid foundation to ensure the security and prosperity of our countries, to progress towards net zero and to support Ukraine.

The foreign minister will also host a strategic dialogue with the Portuguese foreign minister on Friday, June 16, during which they will discuss cooperation on climate change, defense and trade. The two ministers will also sign a Memorandum of Understanding, which will strengthen international development cooperation between the UK and Portugal.

The UK and Portugal have been trading partners for nearly seven centuries and now enjoy a modern trading relationship that delivers clean growth, renewable energy and resilient supply chains. Trade between the two countries has more than doubled from 2021 to 2022, now standing at $11.6 billion and delivering on the Prime Minister’s priority to grow Britain’s economy.

As NATO allies, the security and prosperity of the Euro-Atlantic region is at the heart of the relationship, with both countries providing practical aid and support to Ukraine, and a new bilateral defense agreement , to be signed later this year, should take our defense cooperation to the next level.

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