The Portuguese foreign minister defended this Thursday that, at a time when the European Union (EU) seeks to diversify suppliers and markets, Mercosur is a natural partner, whose importance cannot be “underestimated”.
For Portugal, “the current delicate context leads us to value, even more, the mutual advantages of the Agreement between the EU and Mercosur”, said João Gomes Cravinho, without referring directly to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
“At a time when the EU is seeking a diversification of suppliers and markets, to ensure greater strategic autonomy, Mercosur is a natural partner, whose importance we cannot continue to underestimate“, added the minister, in the conference with the theme “Brazil and Portugal: Perspectives for the Future”, which takes place between this Thursday and Friday at the Gulbenkian Foundation, in Lisbon.
The Common Market of the South (Mercosur) is a South American economic block, created in 1991, of which Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay are founding members.
But even so, within the framework of the European Union, João Gomes Cravinho considered that the strategic association of the EU with Brazil has been “wasted”.
The minister stressed that, in the context of the EU, Portugal “has always known how to use its position in favor of strengthening relations with Brazil”.
Therefore, it was during the Portuguese presidency, in 2007, that “the strategic partnership with Brazil” was established, he stressed.
However, in the opinion of the head of the Portuguese diplomacy, it is “an association that has clearly not been used, for various reasons, and that still retains the ability to place Brazil as the great interlocutor of Europe for South America” .
Regarding bilateral relations between the two countries, the minister highlighted that “in this context of global disturbance, the wisdom of a central characteristic shared by Brazilian and Portuguese foreign policies, which is the intense participation in multiple multilateral frameworks, in recognition of the indispensability of multilateralism, international cooperation and a rules-based world order.
Portugal meets Brazil in all the pillars of Portuguese foreign policy. We are Atlantic, we are Ibero-American and we are Lusophones,” she said.
In the Atlantic dimension, “Portugal and Brazil are united by an ocean that we recognize as increasingly relevant, in the context of new, complex and truly existential challenges,” he said.
According to João Gomes Cravinho “a part of these challenges can find an answer in the Atlantic Center, an institution of which Portugal and Brazil are co-founders” and “another part of the immense oceanic challenges will be addressed in depth at the great Summit of the Oceans”, that Lisbon hosts during the next week.
“In any of the areas, new perspectives are opened for the Portuguese-Brazilian relationship,” he stressed.
Regarding Ibero-America, the minister considered that Portugal and Brazil share a “great strategic space with the Spanish-speaking countries, where a joint Portuguese-Brazilian reflection is undoubtedly recommended about the potential to take advantage of opportunities and generate synergies”.
“The value of the CPLP [Comunidade de Países de Língua Portuguesa] has gained more and more international recognition – and proof of this is the growing number of States that become associated observers” of the organization, he considered.
“Because they want to interact with us and reinforce the value of the linguistic, cultural and historical ties that unite Lusophony and that create unique dynamics for the relationship with third parties,” he stressed.
But also on this level, he argued that it is urgent to find “the convergence of visions and wills” that “allows us to strengthen” our “separate realities”.
The minister also mentioned that “despite the stoppage imposed by the pandemic”, Portugal has “a real air bridge” with Brazil, made up of more than 74 weekly TAP flights, this being the cause and consequence of “a dynamic that is renewed and reinvent”. the relationship between the two countries.
This dynamic, according to Gomes Cravinho, is also reflected in economic and commercial relations.
Therefore, “Brazil is the first Latin American market for Portuguese goods exports and is already the fourth destination for goods exports (outside the EU)”.
“However, the conviction remains that the potential is far from being realized, and that nostalgia for the future entails visions of another profile for our exchanges, a technological, creative profile, in accordance with global geoeconomic transformations,” he defended. .
On this point, João Gomes Cravinho also underlined the potential of the port of Sines, “whose strategic relevance, which has been pointed out for a long time, acquires a new role in the turbulent times we are experiencing”.
Source: Observadora
