Scholz will address political and climate challenges in Argentina, Chile and Brazil

The German Chancellor, Olaf Schölzwill address with the leaders of Argentina, Chile and Brazil great global challenges, both political, commercial and climatic, in what will be his first trip to these countries since he came to power and determined to highlight the importance of the Latin American region.

The tour will begin next Saturday and its details will be revealed by the Foreign Ministry at the end of next week, but according to the German government spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, Scholz will meet with the Argentine leaders -Alberto Fernández-, Chilean -Gabriel Boric – and Brazilian -Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva-.

The trip “underlines the relevance as a partner of the region”, Hebestreit pointed out, according to which Germany is preparing to “deepen” political and economic relations with these countries, especially with regard to the fight against climate change and the sustainable economic growth.

Scholz already had the opportunity to exchange opinions with Fernández in the last German rotating presidency of the G7, the group of the seven great powers – the United States, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, France and Italy, as well as Germany -, which Argentina attended as a guest country for Latin America.

A month before meeting at the G7 leaders’ summit, held in June 2022 in the Bavarian castle of Elmau, Fernández and Scholz had already held a bilateral meeting in Berlin, as part of the Argentine leader’s official visit to Germany.

Germany is Argentina’s first trading partner within the European Union (EU) bloc and a country of great relevance in the search for solutions to the energy crisis precipitated by the war in Ukraine, a Foreign Ministry spokesman told Efe.

The visit to Chile is the first made by a German head of government in ten years, after that of the conservative Angela Merkel in 2013 and which will now bring together the Social Democratic chancellor with the progressive Boric.

Brazil, a country to which Merkel gave in the past the rank of preferred partner in the region, is for Scholz a kind of “reunion” between friends, after the return to power of Lula, a reference figure for the Chancellor’s Social Democratic Party (SPD). .

Already after the electoral defeat of Jair Bolsonaro, Germany expressed its desire to unlock the Amazon Fund -as Norway also did-, a purpose that materialized with the inauguration of Lula as president at the beginning of January.

The German President, Franz-Walter Steinmeier, and Scholz’s Minister of the Environment, the green Steffi Lemke, attended the ceremony, determined to activate the necessary protocols to reactivate the fund, whose main contributor is Norway.

The Amazon Fund was paralyzed three years ago, by decision of the then Merkel government, as a result of the accelerated deforestation process under the Bolsonaro presidency.

In the economic background of the tour is Scholz’s intention to finally conclude the free trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur, as the German leader reiterated a few days ago in his speech before the Davos Economic Fund (Switzerland).

Source: Elcomercio

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