Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be in Portugal on November 18 and 19 to meet with Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and Prime Minister António Costa, marking a new stage in relations between the two countries.
Lula will visit Portugal after visiting Egypt on the occasion of the climate summit (COP27), where he is expected to defend the Amazon and distance himself from the environmental policies of the last four years of an upset Jair Bolsonaro after he was not invited.
During Bolsonaro’s term in office, relations between Portugal and Brazil had suffered some estrangement. Not only did the Brazilian not make any official visit to the European country, but he also canceled a lunch with President De Sousa when he was in Brazil in July.
It seems that Bolsonaro decided to cancel that meeting after De Sousa met a day earlier with Lula da Silva, at a time when both were on the eve of starting an electoral campaign in which Prime Minister Costa called for a vote for the leader of the Workers’ Party (PT).
As part of this renewed normality in their relations, on Tuesday former Finance Minister Rubens Ricupero apologized during an event in Rio de Janeiro to the Portuguese ambassador for the «unspeakable treatment» Bolsonaro had with President De Sousa a few months ago.
«We have to apologize to the president of Portugal and the Portuguese people for the unspeakable treatment that was given to the head of state of the Portuguese Republic by a Brazilian who disgraces every day the high office of president of Brazil that he undeservedly occupies,» Ricupero said, Portuguese media report.
