2023-05-23 01:15:57
Some of the analysts interviewed by the report following the PT’s statements say he is correct
CLARA BALBI
SAO PAULO-SP
During the G7 summit held in Hiroshima, Japan, this weekend, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), in defending the reform of multilateral bodies –a historic demand of his foreign policy–, insisted that it is necessary to the past.
Some of the analysts interviewed by the report following the PT’s statements affirmed that he was correct.
But he also says that the same advice applies to his own conduct, which needs to update priorities in relation to the foreign policy of his other mandates.
For researchers, by blaming Western powers for the War in Ukraine and insisting on a role in negotiating peace in relation to which Kiev and its allies show distrust, Lula missed the opportunity to use the G7 space to guide discussions in areas in which the Brazil can indeed make a difference, as an environment.
“Lula loses credibility and time with this idea of being a mediator”, says Leandro Consentino, political scientist and professor at Insper. “We are witnessing a new Cold War, a conflict that is much more between East and West than between North and South. Brazil is basing its actions on a narrative from the early 2000s at a time that might define international relations in the 21st century. Lula needs to realize this, otherwise he will become an aging leader.”
For him, Brasília’s proposal to present itself as a mediator for the conflict in Eastern Europe was never credible, given Lula’s statements also blaming Ukraine for the war even during the electoral campaign and Brazil’s proximity to Russia.
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The researcher argues that, to convince the countries to sit down at a table, someone with equidistance in relation to the parties was needed, a characteristic not attributable to Lula.
Carolina Pavese, PhD in international relations from the London School of Economics and professor at ESPM, also says she believes that any attempt to negotiate the war for Brazil would be doomed to failure. For her, the reason is a “clear incompatibility of approach and strategy” on how to deal with this conflict by the leaders of the G7, who are also allies of Kiev, and Lula.
Both she and other experts claim that the cancellation of the long-awaited meeting between Lula and Zelenski at the event on Sunday (21) compromised the PT’s peace mediation proposal – even though the Itamaraty claims that it was the Ukrainian, and not the Brazilian, who did not showed up for the scheduled meeting between the two.
In this sense, the G7 summit would have represented the failure of an opportunity to improve relations between the two countries, shaken since the PT suggested that Ukraine should consider ceding territory to Russia to end the war.
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Pavese says that, especially for Lula, the occasion would be very convenient, since it would allow a meeting for which he is under pressure to hold without having to make a big event out of it.
The setback was compounded by a scene from the only meeting shared between the two heads of state, a working session on global peace and prosperity shared with G7 leaders and summit guests, which shows that Lula did not rise to greet the Ukrainian when he entered. in the room, unlike several of those present.
In a meeting with journalists at the end of the summit, the PT member stated that, distracted while drafting ideas for his speech, he did not see Zelensky arrive, and that, when the meeting ended, he was already late for another appointment.
The problem is that foreign policy is “basically symbolic”, says Consentino – although, by the same token, Pavese argues that the Ukrainian did not make any effort to approach the Brazilian either.
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The result of the sum of these events is, for some of the specialists heard by the report, a perception by the West that Lula leaves the G7 not representing a position of neutrality, as he seeks to emphasize so much, but closer to Vladimir Putin.
Anecdotally, this Monday (22), the Chancellor of Denmark, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, put Brazil in the same category as India and China, according to him countries “not allied” to Ukraine, when he said that he intended to organize a meeting to discuss peace options to the conflict in Eastern Europe on the sidelines of a European Union event in Brussels.
The three nations, which share the Brics with Russia and South Africa, have claimed neutrality in the face of the conflict. But Beijing and New Delhi are strategic allies of Moscow and have not condemned the Russian invasion of Kiev within the framework of the United Nations, unlike Brasilia.
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Vinicius Rodrigues Vieira, professor at Faap, considers, however, that it is necessary to take into account that the West has a predisposition to see things in an excessively binary way and to distrust anyone who does not automatically adhere to its proposals.
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Moreover, one thing is the narrative, another is the reality: the G7 has been losing more and more economic power, and its countries, which added up to more than half of the global GDP in 1980, this year see that percentage correspond to only a third.
Vieira claims that the G7 Member States are aware of this and that they need the support of countries like Brazil in order not to become isolated. He mentions, for example, Lula’s meetings with the Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, who promised visa exemption for Brazilians and announced a billionaire loan for the country for health and other sectors, and with the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, who considers the successes of the PT’s management in recent days.
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