The Diplomat
King Philip VI held a meeting yesterday with the new president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a day after attending the inauguration of the president and accompanied by the Second Vice President and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares.
“I received greetings from King Philip VI of Spain, who came to Brazil to accompany our inauguration,” Lula stated on his official Twitter account. “We talked about relations between Brazil and Spain, Europe and Latin America,” he added. For his part, Albares also made mention of this meeting on the same social network, in which he stressed that “Spain and Brazil are united by deep ties and will continue to work together in the face of global challenges.” The meeting took place at the Itamaraty Palace, headquarters of the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At the end of the meeting, King Phiip left for the Brasilia Air Base, from where he began his return trip to Spain.
In addition, Albares held yesterday a “fruitful meeting with the new Brazilian Chancellor, Mauro Vieira”, to whom she conveyed “Spain’s desire to continue deepening our strategic relations” and to “work together to address global challenges: peace, environment, equality”, as reported via Twitter.
Likewise, Yolanda Díaz took advantage of her stay in Brazil to meet with her new Brazilian Labor counterpart, Luiz Marinho, and the newly appointed Minister of Racial Equality, Anielle Franco. “Lula’s presidency and the change it will bring to Brazil and the world in democratic terms is a beacon in the world,” said the Vice President in Brasilia.
The King and the two representatives of the Government attended this Sunday in Brasilia the transfer of the presidential command to Lula da Silva. Philip VI’s trip to the Brazilian capital included a lunch with the President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and bilateral meetings with the President of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco, and the new Prime Minister of Peru, Alberto Otárola. After the investiture ceremony, held at the Planalto Palace, there was an initial greeting from the King to President Lula, his wife, Rosángela da Silva, and the Vice-President of Brazil, Geraldo Alckmin.
The King attended his 80th inauguration in Brasilia since 1996, when he began traveling as Prince of Asturias to such ceremonies. It was also his eleventh inauguration as King and his first trip to Brazil since he came to the Throne in 2014. As heir to the Crown, he attended twenty years ago, on January 1, 2003, the first inauguration of Lula -who was succeeding Fernando Henrique Cardoso-, and returned eight years later to attend the presidential handover from Lula da Silva to Dilma Rousseff.
This trip also represents the first visit of Philip VI as King to Brazil after those made in November 1996 (Inauguration of Expotecnia in Salvador de Bahia), October 1998 (Signing of the Peace Agreements between Ecuador and Peru), February 2005 (Official Trip accompanied by Doña Letizia), July 2007 (Inauguration of the new network of Cervantes Institute centers) and March 2014 (Presentation Ceremony of the Spain-Brazil Council Foundation in São Paulo).
At Sunday’s ceremony, Philip VI coincided with 15 other heads of state who accompanied Lula on his return to power, including those of Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, as well as those of Germany and Portugal. The ceremony was not attended by the outgoing president, Jair Bolsonaro, who did not present Lula with the presidential sash, breaking a tradition in Brazilian democracy.
