«We expect to solve, within the next few hours, the issues that are still open. We have the political conditions to settle the agreement tonight», declared the Minister of State and Foreign Affairs and President of the Council of Ministers of the European Union, Luís Amado, at the press conference after the first session of the Lisbon European Summit.

According to Luís Amado, «the amount of issues that still have to be resolved is very small» and the Portuguese presidency of the EU «is concentrated» on the solution of those issues, through bilateral meetings. The Portuguese head of diplomacy stressed the fact that negotiations are happening in a constructive and positive atmosphere. «We expect to finish the task tonight so that tomorrow the Council may look into more urgent matters that the European Union is now facing». According to Luís Amado, the first session of the Summit enabled the Portuguese Presidency to convey to its European partners «the way it evaluates the works» and to «specify exactly at which stage negotiations are with the various delegations». 

Luís Amado said that «we clearly delimited the problems that still need to be solved during the mandate and other issues that have come up during the last few months, but are outside the mandate», and he also stated that, after a phase of bilateral meetings, the Portuguese Presidency «will immediately analyse the proposals to be presented to the plenary for discussion». 

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