Baerbock: Latin America cannot be silent about war – 06/06/2023 – World

In a speech filled with mentions of Elza Soares and football and praise for the Lula government, the head of German diplomacy, Annalena Baerbock, addressed this Tuesday (6th) the European desire for Latin America to take a stand against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

During an event at FGV (Fundação Getúlio Vargas), in São Paulo, the Minister of Foreign Affairs said that she understands that the region perceives the conflict differently from Europe. “Often I hear: where do you [Europa] were you when we needed you?”

“I know that the price of products on the market is more decisive than what happens in Ukraine, so far away. But in Europe we also lived in an environment of peace that we thought would last. Today we see that uncertainties in the supply chains affect the supply of vital products — antibiotics in Germany, fertilizers in Brazil.”

Baerbock, who also carried out an agenda in Brasília, said that the hardening of the economic crisis around the world favors disinformation and the spread of populist and radical movements.

“The recent attack on the heart of Brazilian democracy,” she said, referring to 8 de Janeiro, “was an expression of vulnerability, a dangerous sentiment that we also see in Germany.”

But the war, obviously, was not the only point of the opening speech that the minister of the government of Olaf Scholz delivered at the event on “Democracy and digitization”. Baerbock also demonstrated the European appetite for the energy market in Brazil and Latin America.

In particular, he mentioned lithium, used in the battery of electric cars and already disputed in the region by the US and China. “You are ahead of us. Our buses are not powered by electricity. If we can get lithium extracted and processed in Brazil, we will make production much less dependent on bottlenecks and create jobs.”

Anticipating the criticism, he stressed that his country does not intend to lead a new “gold rush in the region”. “We don’t want an extraction that generates wealth for a few, but we do want the development of the local population, the environment and the entire region.”

On the free trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur, conceived at least 20 years ago and promised for later this year by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and by some European leaders, he denied that Europe emphasizes a protectionist policy.

“We will always bet on openness. We want to expand value chains, learn from each other. It is important that this agreement be sustainable, we do not want to put companies under pressure, but to establish incentives”, he stated. “When they work together, democracies can solve global problems.”

To conclude her speech, the minister risked in Portuguese excerpts from a song by Elza Soares, who died in January 2022 —”And today I’m my own boss, and nobody orders me”—, in a metaphor to refer to incentives for Latino development. American.

In this sense, the diplomat briefly defended that Latin America and Africa have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, without detailing how the regions would be represented.

More than once, she, as well as the German Minister of Labour, Hubertus Heil, who spoke afterwards, said that Brazil and Germany have values ​​not shared by other nations, in a non-explicit reference to countries like China and Russia. “In particular, free market economics and democracy,” Heil said.