Image: Pixabay
The president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, defended this Wednesday (28) the European Union's rapprochement with Mercosur, especially with Brazil, due to its leadership in relation to developing countries, reports “Agência Brasil”. Rebelo said it is essential that an agreement between the blocs “is concluded as quickly as possible”.
“It is essential that an agreement be concluded between the European Union and Mercosur, and that it be concluded as quickly as possible. If feasible, during the Spanish presidency of the European Union until the end of the year.”
{module Form RD}
The statement was made during the closing ceremony of the 11th Lisbon Legal Forum, in the Portuguese capital. The ceremony was attended by the Vice President of Brazil and Minister of Development, Industry, Commerce and Services, Geraldo Alckmin.
According to the Portuguese president, the European Union will lose the opportunity to play a “global role in dialogue between the world’s great powers” if it continues its tendency to restrict its partnerships.
“If the European Union misses the opportunity, due to the blindness of a country or for reasons of the current situation, it will lose the opportunity to have a global role in the dialogue between the great powers of the world”, said Marcelo Rebelo.
According to him, this loss of political space for the European bloc will become even more evident if it does not also establish a partnership with the African continent. If so, he added, “only the United States of America and China will remain. This is bad for us: for Brazil, for Portugal, for the world that Brazil leads, and for the European Union that Portugal is part of”.
Digital powers
Marcelo Rebelo added that unity between countries is necessary, including to jointly face contemporary problems and risks for democracies, especially those that have been enhanced via the digital environment.
“The new digital powers are transnational and require transnational responses. If this is not possible, they require at least small national or continental responses. But, if possible, transnational responses”, said the Portuguese when highlighting the importance of experts, politicians and jurists discovering “formulas for responding to algorithms”, to avoid risks to democracies.
“If we choose the path of democracy, we choose the path of human dignity; rights and differences between people; of pluralism, dialogue and tolerance. This means safeguarding this set of values as quickly and as widely as possible”, he added when criticizing the power that “the owners of digital” have over information that is not always true, but which is disseminated through social networks.
Also in a speech, vice-president Geraldo Alckmin defended rules to prevent the misuse of digital communication tools.
“We have the challenges of the world ahead of the digital world and, there, digital governance can and must allow freedom of the press and freedom of expression. But, at the same time, it needs to avoid fake news, misinformation, insults, in addition to establishing the rules for this new moment that the world will experience”, said the vice president.
Financial powers
The difficulty in exercising this type of control is great, according to the Portuguese president, as is the case with the “financial powers that, a few years ago, caused the financial crisis, when the real economy was converted into a financial economy, and financial power began to determine the real economy.”
This financial crisis, according to Marcelo Rebelo, contaminated the North American economy, and, subsequently, the economy of the rest of the world, “becoming a global crisis”.
Source: datagro
{module Read Also}
