French President Emmanuel Macron will arrive in Brazil this Tuesday, March 26. Technology, energy, environment and defense are some of the topics that he will address during his official visit with his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, until March 28. The Mercosur-European Union trade agreement does not appear on the official agenda, a highly thorny issue in recent months.
The trip of French President Emmanuel Macron through the Amazon began this Monday, March 25, with a tour of French Guiana, in which he held a meeting with young people who are building the Ariane 6 rocket, in the space center created 60 years ago by the General de Gaulle.
Your second stop: Brazil. This Tuesday, March 26, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will receive his French counterpart in Belém, in the state of Pará. A trip with high expectations for relaunch relations between both countries, after weakened cooperation during the government of former president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022).
Political and personal differences between Macron and the former Brazilian president paused relations between countries.
For the French-Dominican Eléonore Caroit, deputy of the French voters residing in Latin America, this trip has “a very strong symbolic meaning” because buries “the cooling period” before.
The official visit will last three days and will feature a series of high-level dialogues to discuss different topics on bilateral cooperation, such as environment, defense, energy, reform of multilateral organizations, among others.
In Belém, the leaders will take a Navy ship to the island of Combu, on the southern bank of the Guamá River. There, they will see the artisanal and sustainable production of cocoa in a forest region.
Lula seeks to demonstrate to President Macron the complexity of the Amazon issue and the alternatives for sustainable economic development that exist, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Environment, among the main axes
Another event on the official agenda is the private meeting between the two presidents and indigenous representatives of communities living in the Amazon. In addition to showing the extensive and diverse Amazon rainforest, Brazilian authorities want the president Macron witnesses that the Amazon is a place that is home to an immense population of nearly 25 million inhabitants who depend on the jungle itself for their survival.
“It is important that Europe assumes its responsibilities in terms of environmental preservation, that it guarantees the proper functioning of its law on the traceability of the products of these companies and that it ensures compliance with the Paris Agreement, which provides annual financial resources for preserve tropical forests,” said Sônia Guajajara, Minister of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, in statements to RFI.
Furthermore, the official highlighted that if there is a real commitment to the preservation of ecosystems and their inhabitants, in areas as vulnerable as the Amazon, it means that the protection must be guaranteed. access to drinking water, sewage, health and quality food. “Europe has a duty to help protect these people, because at the end of the day this is a region that has contributed greatly to global deforestation,” she added.
Macron will then travel to the city of Itaguaí, in Rio de Janeiro, for the inauguration of the third of five submarines built through a cooperation agreement between Brazil and France, which must be delivered in two years.
In addition, the construction of a nuclear propulsion device is planned. In this space the production of nuclear energy for civil society will be discussed and also expand cooperation with the construction of military helicopters.
Brazil-France Economic Forum
Macron will then travel to São Paulo to participate in the Brazil-France Economic Forum, on Wednesday the 27th at the headquarters of the Federation of State Industries (Fiesp). Nearly 50 French businessmen will be present.
In economic matters, The two countries maintain a trade flow of 8.4 billion dollars in 2023with 2.9 billion dollars in Brazilian exports and 5.5 billion dollars in imports.
Soybean meal, crude oils and petroleum, cellulose and iron ore are some of the products that Brazil exports to France.
On the French side, engines and machines, aircraft and products from the manufacturing industry are those that arrive in the South American country.
The Central Bank estimates that France is the third largest investor in Brazilwith more than US$ 38,000 million.
The shadow of the Mercosur-European Union agreement
Macron's trip to Brazil raises expectations about the possible resumption of the negotiations of the trade agreement between the European Union and the Mercosur countries, which are suspended. After several weeks of farmers' protests in France, President Macron confirmed his position of not supporting the agreement with Mercosur. He even warned the European Commission that it is impossible to conclude the negotiations. Dialogues that, precisely, Brazil hosts.
Macron expressed his support for the farmers, who protested, among other things, the possible agreement with Mercosur. According to protesters, they would be detrimental to the sector because they would allow cheap food imports that do not meet the strict standards of the European bloc.
Last February, within the framework of the EU leaders' summit, Macron was emphatic in rejecting this agreement. “What is incomprehensible, and which I myself do not know how to explain, is that we impose rules for what we produce in Europe and allow products to be imported that do not respect those same rules and that come from outside Europe.”
“That is not the topic of this visit. There was a pause in the negotiations due to the elections in the European Parliament. The focus is on the bilateral strategic relationship between these two countries. The focus is on convergences, not divergences,” clarified ambassador Maria Luísa Escorel, cutting off any possibility of dialogue on this issue.
Finally, Macron will visit Brasilia, where his trip will end on Thursday, March 28. At the Planalto Palace, the presidents will hold a meeting to discuss other issues of bilateral cooperation, with a view to the anniversary of the 200 years of diplomatic relations between both countries, which will be completed in 2025.
But Brazil's interest in occupying a permanent seat on the Security Council will also be at the center of the talks, a request that it has made for several decades, like other emerging powers, but which has been rejected by the five countries that They do have a permanent position, among them, France.
Although the French representation has expressed the need to expand the permanent seats, for greater geographical representation in the Council, the reforms that are needed can only be approved if it is not with the consent of the five powers.
At their meeting, Macron and Lula are also expected to discuss the wars in Ukraine and Gaza; the political situation in Venezuela; and the humanitarian crisis in Haiti.
The trip, said Ambassador Escorel, secretary for Europe and North America of the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “is an indication of the importance of the relationship between Brazil and France, of the exchange and the deep interest in various areas.”
With EFE, AP, Reuters and local media
#Brazil #Lula #receives #Macron #Amazon #threeday #visit