EU and Brazil meet to discuss Strategic Partnership
The EU Troika and Brazil will hold their first ever ministerial meeting on 6th June 2008, in Brdo pri Kranju, Slovenia. The talks will be yet another milestone in shaping EU-Brazil relations and implementing the Strategic Partnership launched in July 2007. The meeting will take stock of the preparations for the next EU-Brazil Summit, where a Joint Action Plan will be the key deliverable. Discussions will focus on climate change, effective multilateralism, the fight against global poverty, energy, migration, the global food crisis. The European Commission will be represented by Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Commissioner for External Relations and Neighbourhood Policy.
Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner said before the Ministerial: "Our Strategic Partnership has a huge potential to bring benefits to our citizens and make a difference on important challenges such as poverty, the current food crisis, environment and sustainable energy. To be successful in facing these global challenges we need to continue working for an effective UN system". And she added: "This first Troika meeting is a perfect opportunity to discuss how we can work together to mitigate the effects of the climate change. In this sense, the continuous success of Brazil in combating deforestation is extremely important, and we are keen to pursue our co-operation in this area. I am also looking forward to the exchange on other burning issues in the international debate like the increase in food prices and biofuels."
The EU-Brazil strategic partnership was established at the first EU Brazil Summit, in July 2007. The strategic partnership constitutes a political commitment of the EU and Brazil to actively engage on global political, regional, economic and social developments.
The coming months will be decisive in defining the priorities and concrete actions necessary to implement the political commitments of the July 2007 summit. The EU and Brazil have agreed to draft a Joint Action Plan that will map out the scope and direction of the Strategic Partnership, in preparation for the next EU Brazil Summit in December. While the topics of the Ministerial meeting are central to this road map, the Joint Action Plan will embrace a number of other key themes, including science and technology, information society, maritime and air transport, regional policy, environment, culture, education, macro economic issues.
Background
EU-Brazil relations date back to the 1960s. Relations have been expanding and have led to the signature of an EU-Brazil Framework Co-operation agreement and EU-Mercosur Framework Co-operation Agreement in 1995. Sectoral dialogues - including in science and technology, maritime transport, information society, environment - invigorated EU-Brazil relations even before the Strategic Partnership was established in 2007, The EU is Brazil’s main trading partner.
Additional information on the EU-Brazil relations at: http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/brazil/index_en.htm
Published on: 2008-06-05
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