Three European nations, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia, were admitted as observers along with Uruguay at the 2016 summit. Uruguay has historical ties to Brazil and Portugal and has some speakers of Portuñol, a Spanish–Portuguese pidgin. In January 2018 and prior to the 2018 summit, Italy requested the observer status as an effort for the consolidation of bilateral relations with all of the Portuguese-speaking countries. In its request, the Italian government referred that due to the increasing number of associated observers in the community, CPLP is becoming a forum for countries in various geographical regions. Earlier in January, Andorra also formalized its candidacy for the same status. Italy shares a legacy of Ancient Rome and Italy is the non-lusophone nation with the greatest number of university chairs in the Portuguese language. Because of immigration and geographic proximity, Portuguese is one of the most spoken languages in Andorra.