Speaking in Funchal, the capital of Madeira, Carneiro said that the government had sought to "identify channels of contact, namely in the secretariat of state of higher education and in the secretariat of state of education, so that the regional authorities can proceed to an assessment and then to the recognition of the educational level of pupils who might want to join the Portuguese school system."

A large proportion of the hundreds of thousands of Portuguese citizens resident in Venezuela are from families originally from Madeira. The political and economic turmoil in the South American country in recent months has already prompted many thousands to flee to Portugal, and in particular Madeira.

Carneiro spent all of Wednesday morning in meetings with members of the Madeira regional government, discussing the situation of Portuguese emigrants in Venezuela, including the secretaries of state for parliamentary and European affairs, Sérgio Marques, who also oversees communities abroad, of social affairs, Rubina Leal, and of finance, Rui Gonçalves.

The latter told journalists that the region needs "several million euros" to provide support to returning families, with between 3,000 and 4,000 emigrants and their spouses and children estimated to have landed in the last year. Officially 1,000 emigrants from Venezuela have been registered in the region's employment offices and 585 in local health centres, while 197 new pupils registered at local schools in the last current school year.

Carneiro, however, said that "the most important thing now is not talking of financial resources" but rather "talking of the needs and how we can meet the needs of these citizens." He stressed that provision of lessons in the Portuguese language was one of the most important issues, as well as housing, access to healthcare and official registration with the authorities.

Since early April Venezuela has seen a wave of violent protests against the government of Nicolás Maduro that have claimed at least 93 lives, as well as soaring inflation and shortages of basic necessities in the shops.