On the eve of the opening of the G20 Leaders’ Summit (group of the 19 largest economies on the planet, plus the European Union and the African Union), President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will have an intense day, with bilateral meetings with 11 heads of state and government this Sunday (17). The meetings will take place at the Copacabana Fort, the same place where the president met this Saturday (16) with the UN secretary general, António Guterres.
After participating in the opening session of Urban 20, a group of cities from G20 member countries, Lula begins the marathon of bilateral meetings at 10:30 am, with the president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa. South Africa will be the next country to preside over the G20, receiving command of the group on Tuesday (19).
Then, at 11:20 am, Lula will meet with the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim. At 12:10 pm, the president will meet with the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni. This will be the third meeting between the two. In June last year, the president met with the prime minister on a visit to Italy. In June of this year, Lula met again with Meloni at the G7 meeting (group of the seven largest economies on the planet), held in the European country.
After a lunch break, Lula will meet with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, at 2:15 pm. At 3pm, there will be a meeting with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
The series of bilateral meetings continues at 3pm, with the president of Vietnam, Pham Minh Chinh, and at 4:40pm, with the president of Angola, João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço.
At 5:30 pm, Lula will meet with the president of Türkiye, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The two are expected to talk about Turkey’s request to join the Brics, a bloc of emerging economies founded by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. According to the Turkish government, the Brics recently offered Turkey the status of a partner country. At 6:20 pm, the Brazilian president will meet with the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
The marathon of bilateral meetings ends at 7:30 pm, with a meeting with the French president, Emmanuel Macron. At 8:20 pm, Lula will end the day with a meeting with the president of Bolivia, Luis Arce.
Haddad
The Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, will participate in most of the meetings. He will accompany Lula to meetings with the presidents of South Africa and France, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, the president of the European Commission and the prime ministers of Malaysia and Italy.
Haddad will have a bilateral meeting at 5:40 pm with the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, at the Fairmont Hotel, which hosts most of the official delegations for the G20 meeting. This meeting will not be attended by Lula.
