Olaf Scholz is for three days in South America. The search for new contracts for rare earths and lithium, precious for automobile batteries, is at the center of this visit, which is mainly commercial. After visiting Chile and Argentina, the Chancellor will travel to Brazil on Monday 30 January.
With our correspondent in Berlin, Nathalie Versieux
Olaf Scholz will be the first Western leader to meet Lula da Silva since his re-election last October.
Accompanied by a dozen business leaders, the German Chancellor will insist on the need to complete the free trade agreement between the European Union and Latin America.
An agreement between the two areas signed in 2019, but which had never been ratified, due to concerns over the environmental policies of Lula’s predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.
Berlin, in fact, hopes to turn the tumultuous page of the Bolsonaro years, both environmentally and commercially.
Germany, the second largest funder for the protection of the Amazon forest behind Norway, resumed its transfers at the beginning of the year, and paid 35 million euros to the fund for the Amazon.
Knapp 24 Stunden Buenos Aires: Im Stadtteil Boca habe ich heute Vormittag mit jungen Leuten diskutiert. Es zeigt sich, uns bewegen dieselben Themen – der Umstieg auf grüne Technologien, der Schutz der Artenvielfalt und wie wir all das sozial gerecht gestalten können. pic.twitter.com/KofLsNZAyC
— Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz (@Bundeskanzler) January 29, 2023
There remains the question of Russia. While Brazil is one of the countries that condemned the invasion of Ukraine, it refused to participate in the sanctions program against Moscow.
In December, Lula had even irritated Westerners by believing that Ukraine shared the responsibility for the outbreak of the conflict with Russia.
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