Portugal needs to ‘pay the costs’ of slavery and colonialism, says president

A woman on Lisbon’s Praça do Comércio shows the printed scene on her dress of slaves picking cotton. For about 400 years, slaves were brought from Africa to the Lisbon square where they were traded. Photograph: Armando França/AP

Portugal needs to “pay the costs” of slavery and other colonial-era crimes, the country’s president has said, in a rare instance of a European leader seemingly backing the need for reparations.

Portugal has long grappled with calls by campaigners to address its legacy as the European country with the longest historical involvement in the slave trade. During the span of four centuries, nearly 6 million Africans were kidnapped and forcibly transported across the Atlantic by Portuguese vessels.