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Welcome from the Chair

MEP F Ruas
fruas.jpg © European Parliament
I consider it an honour and a source of immense personal and political satisfaction to chair the European Parliament Delegation for relations with the Federative Republic of Brazil (D‑BR) -- for Brazil is a friend, a country whose history and culture in many ways overlap with ours and with which the European Union (EU) has one of its longest-standing formal diplomatic relationships, dating back to the 1960s.

The Delegation meets either in Brussels or in Strasbourg, and we regularly hold meetings with our counterparts in the Brazilian Congress, for which the venue alternates between Brussels and Brasilia.

To reflect the fact that Brazil, the world's fifth largest country in terms of size and population, is a global player on the international stage, the EU-Brazil Strategic Partnership was established after the two parties had together held their First Summit, in July 2007.

This partnership encompasses a number of areas of common interest, including climate change, sustainable energy, poverty alleviation, the Mercosur integration process and stability and prosperity in Latin America. The EU and Brazil, in addition, trade with each other on a large scale: the EU is Brazil's second largest trading partner (accounting for 18,3% of its total trade, according to figures from 2017), whereas Brazil is the EU's eleventh-largest trading partner (accounting for 1,7% of EU trade as a whole, again according to the 2017 figures) and the biggest single exporter of agricultural products to the EU.

The objective that D-BR is pursuing within this general context is twofold. Firstly, acting as the European legislative arm, it oversees the Joint Action Plan (established under the Strategic Partnership); secondly, it is seeking to build a strong, lasting, open and cordial interparliamentary relationship, based on our shared principles, which are in turn rooted in a centuries-old relationship between Europeans and Brazilians.

Fernando Ruas
Chair of the Delegation for Relations with the Federative Republic of Brazil