Brazil and Venezuela: renewing a strategic partnership

At a joint press conference yesterday with the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, president Dilma Rousseff declared that the two countries have a strategic partnership that seeks to strengthen democracy and development in South America.

“Our countries are linked by more than geography and harmonious, peaceful relations. We are united in our determination to preserve South America as a zone of peace, democracy, economic and social growth, and respect for human rights,” declared Dilma.

President Chavez said that his country was anxiously awaiting its entrance into the Southern Cone Common Market (“Mercosur”) after the Brazilian congress approved the move and now only Paraguay had to give its approval.

In meetings with Chavez, Dilma offered assistance to Venezuela with low-cost housing projects and farming – areas where Brazil has vast experience. Dilma also cited the need for border area integration (Brazil and Venezuela have a 2,200 kilometer long border) “Our border regions need connectedness – electricity grids, telecommunications systems, highways and productive chains, as well,” said Dilma.

The two countries signed agreements on cooperation in petroleum, scientific and technological research and the eradication of hoof and mouth disease.

Dilma also cited the constant expansion of partnership efforts between the two neighboring nations, especially in the petroleum sector where Petrobras and the Venezuelan PDVSA (both state-run petroleum companies) were cooperating to the point of building the Abreu e Lima oil refinery in Pernambuco, Brazil.

Dilma praised Venezuela for its recent détente with Colombia, and its role in the successful return of the deposed president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, which both countries considered necessary for relations with that Central American nation to be normalized.