The Diplomat
King Felipe VI received last Friday at the Royal Palace of El Pardo the Board of Trustees of the Spain-Brazil Council Foundation (FECB) on the occasion of the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of its creation.
As reported by the Royal House in a press release, the meeting was attended by the Secretary of State for Latin America and the Caribbean and Spanish in the World, Juan Fernández Trigo; the Secretary of State for Trade, Xiana Margarida Méndez Bértolo; and the president of the Spain-Brazil Council Foundation, Antonio Huertas Mejías.
“We thank His Majesty the King for receiving in audience the Board of Trustees of the Spain-Brazil Council Foundation, which I chair, on the occasion of its tenth anniversary,” Huertas stated via his Twitter account. “We have handed over the Foundation’s activity report and shown our commitment to strengthening relations between Spain and Brazil,” the MAPFRE chairman added.
The Foundation is part of the Network of Council Foundations promoted and supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to broaden and deepen bilateral relations with Spain’s main partners and strategic allies. “The Foundation began its journey in 2012 and since then has promoted various activities aimed at strengthening ties between the two countries,” the FECB states on its website. “Its Board of Trustees is made up of important representatives of the Spanish business sector and includes a small but important institutional presence,” it adds.
The meeting of the Board of Trustees took place two days after the visit to Spain of the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in which he was received by the King and met with the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez. As part of this visit, the Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mauro Vieira, met on Wednesday with the Spain-Brazil Council Foundation, in the presence of many of the companies that have made Spain the second most important country in terms of investment in Brazil.
Lula’s presence in Madrid has served to address the negotiations for the conclusion of the agreement between the EU and Mercosur. For the two countries, according to the Government, the coincidence between the Spanish Presidency of the EU and the Brazilian Presidency of Mercosur, both in the second half of this year, represents an “excellent opportunity” to try to materialize the rapprochement between the two organizations in concrete advances. The agreement was closed in 2019 after more than 20 years of negotiations, but has not yet entered into force because of the disagreements of some countries, especially France.
According to the Council Foundation, Spain and Brazil have maintained close relations in many areas for many years. The Spain-Brazil Strategic Partnership Plan or the Spain-Brazil Ministerial Commission for Political Dialogue created in 2012 are two of the various instruments working on this. Apart from that, Brazil has become the seventh largest economy in the world with a potential market of 195 million consumers. With an accumulated investment of 65,266 million euros, Brazil is the world’s second largest destination for Spanish investment and could become in the coming years the first destination for our investments abroad. Spanish companies have created more than 214,000 direct jobs and 210,000 indirect jobs in Brazil.
Spain and Brazil have also maintained close political and cultural ties for many years. The Cervantes Institute has eight centers in Brazil, more than in any other country in the world. In the university sphere, there are very intense relations. “The Foundation aims to nurture all these initiatives and at the same time promote others. With the backing of its board of trustees, the Fundación Consejo is destined to become a meeting point for relations between Spain and Brazil,” it concludes.
