New foreign minister vows to rebuild Brazilian diplomacy

In his inauguration address, Brazil’s new minister of Foreign Relations, Mauro Vieira, promised to bring Brazil back to the “great stage of international relations,” adding he will give special attention to recovering the ties with Latin America and the Caribbean.

“Foreign policy will once again render into actions the vision of a generous country, with more social justice,” said Vieira, who was foreign minister in 2015 and 2016 during former President Dilma Rousseff’s second term.

Among the forums the new government should strengthen, Vieira said, are the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac).

The chancellor also pledged commitment to the transition to clean energy and to international environmental pacts. “This will require environmental and climate diplomacy of the first magnitude,” he declared. Vieira promised to carry out the proposal presented by Lula at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) in November, namely to organize a summit meeting on the Amazon in Brazil.

Despite the government’s intention to resume the deal between Mercosur and the EU—finalized in 2019 but not yet ratified by several countries—Vieira said he should keep up talks with the OECD on Brazil’s admission to the group, which requires compliance with economic, political, environmental, and social guidelines.

Decisions

As one of the first moves in the new administrations, the Ministry of Foreign Relations accepted the nomination of sociologist Sebastián Depolo Cabrera as Chile’s ambassador to Brazil. The process had been on hold for ten months because Depolo was active in the student protests in Chile in 2011, which, according to the previous government, would have made his diplomatic work in the country unviable.