section_path: Politics/Foreign relations
section_name: Foreign relations
paragraph_text: Foreign relations
  
  A member state of the United Nations since 1955, Portugal is a founding member of NATO (1949), the OECD (1961) and EFTA (1960); it left the last in 1986 to join the European Economic Community, which became the European Union in 1993. In 1996, Portugal co-founded the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth, an international organisation and political association of Lusophone nations where Portuguese is an official language.
  
  Portugal has hosted several international summits and events like the first EU–Brazil summit in July 2007, the second EU–African Union summit in December 2007, the signing of the Treaty of Lisbon also in December 2007, and the NATO summit in November 2010. Portugal was a full member of the Latin Union (1983) and the Organisation of Ibero-American States (1949). It has a friendship alliance and dual citizenship treaty with its former colony, Brazil. Portugal and the United Kingdom share the world's oldest active military accord through their Anglo-Portuguese Alliance (Treaty of Windsor), signed in 1373.