President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is due to arrive in Berlin this Sunday for the first government-level meeting between Brazil and Germany in eight years, with Europe and Latin America’s largest economies seeking to mend their historic ties.
Lula has traveled around the world since returning to office in January, trying to restore Brazil’s position on the global stage after years of diplomatic isolation under predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, and has so far achieved reasonable results.
He is due to have dinner on Sunday with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, also a leftist, before Monday’s summit.
Scholz was the first foreign leader to visit Lula in Brazil, a few weeks after he took office.
Since taking office at the end of 2021, the German Chancellor has sought to improve ties with the Global South. Germany also sees Brazil as a key partner as it seeks to diversify trade, in part to reduce its dependence on China and fill the gap in skilled labor.
Both countries are pushing for a quick trade deal between the European Union and Mercosur, South America’s main trading bloc, currently chaired by Brazil.
“Everyone knows that we support and fight for this agreement and also want it to be concluded very quickly,” a spokesperson for the German Economic Ministry said last Friday.
A trade treaty was agreed in early 2019 after two decades of negotiations, but new environmental commitments demanded by the EU led Brazil and Argentina to seek new concessions that prolonged negotiations.
“Free trade agreements open up access to new markets from which the export-oriented German economy can benefit,” said Lukas Koehler, MP for the Free Democrats (FDP), a party that is part of the three-party coalition that supports the Scholz government.
According to the German Business Commission, German exports to Brazil, however, have only grown by 3 percent over the past decade, compared to 38 percent and 87 percent growth in US and Chinese exports to Brazil, respectively, according to the German Business Commission.
Scholz hopes to avoid a scenario like the one in January, when his visit to Brazil was overshadowed by disagreements over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This time the press conference on Monday afternoon could highlight the differences in positions regarding the war between Israel and Hamas.
Lula said last month that Israel is “committing terrorism” against Palestinians “not taking into account the fact that children are not at war, that women are not at war.” Scholz, on the other hand, avoided such criticism and continued to support “Israel’s right to defend itself.”
Source: Terra
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