RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Brazilian government announced on Wednesday, without giving details, that the Mercosur summit to be held on December 16 and 17 will be moved to an online format in an atmosphere of political and economic tension among the members and with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus threatening the stability of the country.
The apparent political tension has arisen due to the invitation extended by the Argentine president, Alberto Fernández, to Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, on the occasion of Democracy Day, which is celebrated on December 10, and which could have cooled the relationship between the two countries, as the two politicians are in dispute in the run-up to the presidential elections to be held in October 2022.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in November called the reception with state honors in France to his political opponent a “provocation” and repeated the gesture he made to Alberto Fernández, assuring that “France was never an example” for them.
Moreover, this uneasiness between the two countries comes barely a week after an event held at the Argentine embassy in Brasilia to commemorate the friendship between Brazil and the neighboring country.