Lula departs for Lisbon on Thursday for his first trip to Europe in his third term | Policy
3 min read:strip_icc()/s02.video.glbimg.com/x720/11550445.jpg)
President Lula is expected to visit Portugal. Before, he participates in the climate event in the United States
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) departs Thursday evening (20) for Lisbon, the starting point of a trip to Portugal and Spain – the first to Europe in his third term.
Lula will focus most of his agenda in Portugal, where he will meet with the authorities and present the Camões Award to singer and composer Chico Buarque. The singer was announced to have won the award in 2019, but then-president Jair Bolsonaro refused to sign the diploma.
See agenda details below.
The Iberian itinerary, which will have commitments until next Wednesday (26), represents a new stage in the government’s foreign policy, after Lula gave priority to the main trading partners and neighbors in the first flights from the new state. Lula visited:
The President’s visit comes in the context of re-launching relations with Europe and the world. In Europe, let’s start with Portugal, it is Brazil’s gateway to the European Union,” Ambassador María Luisa Escorel de Moraes, Minister for Europe and North America at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told reporters.
Portugal timetable
- Friday (21): Estimated time of arrival in Lisbon
- Saturday (22): He takes part in a reception with the President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Souza, and lays flowers at the tomb of the poet Luis de Camis, in the Jeronimos Monastery, in Belém. He has lunch with the Portuguese Prime Minister, Antonio Costa, and participates in the 13th Brazilian-Portuguese Summit, a bilateral summit that resumed after seven years. The two governments will sign at least 13 documents, including an agreement for the equivalency of certificates at the primary and secondary levels and another for the recognition of driver’s licenses.
- Sunday (23): No formal commitments expected.
- Monday (24): A trip to the city of Matosinhos in the Porto region for the inauguration of the Portuguese-Brazilian Business Forum. Lula could make the trip on a KC-390 military cargo plane, made by Embraer, in order to encourage the sale of the plane. He returns to Lisbon to present the Camões Award to Chico Buarque.
- Tuesday (25): Lula will be honored in an official session of the Republic of Portugal.
Spain schedule
- Tuesday (25): travels to Madrid to participate in a business forum. There is a possible meeting with the Spanish King, Felipe VI.
- Wed (26): The final commitment of the trip should be a meeting with the country’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, followed by the signing ceremony of an agreement.
Brazil and Spain are interested in resolving the deadlocks that delay the implementation of the trade agreement between Mercosur and the European Union, as the two countries will assume leadership of the two blocs later this year. Bolsonaro’s environmental policy, which has led to massive deforestation, has made negotiation difficult.
Mercosur and the EU have been negotiating since 1999. Twenty years after the start of the talks, in 2019, the blocs finished negotiations on trade and, a year later, the so-called political and cooperative aspects. Since then, the agreement has been under review.
“Devoted food specialist. General alcohol fanatic. Amateur explorer. Infuriatingly humble social media scholar. Analyst.”
