Brazil and the European Union are going o promote their second joint summit on December 22, in Rio de Janeiro, to discuss and expand the strategic partnership launched in 2007, in Lisbon, during the Portuguese presidency of the European block.
The Rio summit, the last great event during the French presidency of the EU, should include Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, French president Nicolas Sarkozy, and the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Durão Barroso from Portugal.
This second joint meeting takes place one and a half year after the first EU-Brazil Summit, on July 4, in Lisbon, all in Portuguese, with the prime minister and then president of the EU, José Sócrates, Lula and Barroso, launching a strategic partnership between both parties.
The Lisbon Summit marked the start of regular and higher-level political, economic and trade dialogue between the EU and Brazil, granting the country, with regard to the Europe, the same status of global economies and emerging economies like the United States, Canada, Russia, China and India, among others.
The launch of the EU-Brazil strategic partnership was one of the "flags" of the Portuguese presidency of the European Union, in the second half of 2007.
At the time, José Sócrates said that "it was through Portuguese pressure, by Portuguese suggestion and due to Portuguese insistence that the meeting took place", and added that he always thought "that in relations between the EU and Latin America, a pillar had always been lacking, and this pillar could only be Brazil".
Lusa
