Swiss foreign minister: Brazil relations unchanged under Bolsonaro

Cassis with the Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo during a meeting, in Brasilia, Brazil on Friday. Keystone / Raylson Ribeiro / Ministry Of Fo

The Swiss minister for foreign affairs, Ignazio Cassis, who has wrapped up his South America trip in Brazil, says that relations with the country have not changed under its new president Jair Bolsonaro.

The focus on the Brazil part of his four-day tour – he also visited Uruguay and Chile – was economic cooperation.

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Speaking during his trip, he told swissinfo.ch’s Portuguese service that he chosen to go to Brazil because it was a huge country “with great potential despite internal problems”. He hoped the two countries could improve relations even more.

He relativised the impact of the election of rightwing Bolsonaro on Swiss-Brazil relations.

“There was fundamentally no change in the bilateral relationship between Switzerland and Brazil with the new government,” he said, although there could be a bit more uncertainty because it was a major change.

At present, it was important to understand whether Switzerland could continue to collaborate on a political, economic and democratic level, including on human rights, outlined Cassis.

Also key: whether the free-trade agreement could be concluded between the Common Market of the South (Mercosur), of which Brazil is a member, and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), of which Switzerland is a part, he said.

Brazil is Switzerland’s largest trading partnerExternal link in Latin America and is also home to the second largest Swiss community in the region (14,124 at the end of 2017).  In 1819, the first Swiss consulate overseas was opened in Rio de Janeiro. There are also two Swiss schools abroad in São Paulo and Curitiba.