Brazil’s Presidential Transition: A Chance for Re-engagement

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s defeat of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil’s October 2022 presidential election marked a pivotal moment of democratic restoration. Lula’s narrow victory, after years of political polarisation and democratic erosion under Bolsonaro, represented a significant reversal of authoritarian trends in Latin America’s largest democracy. The election outcome was viewed globally as a test of democratic resilience, since Bolsonaro had frequently undermined Brazil’s electoral institutions, cast doubt on the integrity of elections, and hinted that he would reject the result if defeated.

Lula’s win presented the European Union (EU) with an opportunity to restore relations with Brazil on issues of shared importance. Yet, the union’s cautious reaction to this potential democratic opening revealed the limits of the EU’s capacity to take decisive action. Overall, the EU’s approach to Brazil’s moment of democratic opportunity was notably less assertive than the bolder, more proactive response of the United States (US).

An averted coup

After Lula’s victory, supporters of the defeated incumbent organised road blockades across the country as Bolsonaro refused to acknowledge his loss. Analysts warned of potential political violence reminiscent of the insurrection in the US on 6 January 2021. Thousands of Bolsonaro’s backers gathered outside military barracks in Brasília and other cities, demanding an intervention from the armed forces.

Analysts’ fears materialised on 8 January 2023, just one week after Lula’s inauguration, when rioters invaded the presidential palace, the National Congress, and the supreme court in an incident that bore strong similarities to the storming of the US Capitol two years earlier. Allegations soon surfaced that implicated elements of the Brazilian military in the events of 8 January, with some senior officers accused of either tacitly supporting or enabling the attacks. Almost 1,500 people were arrested after the riots, and investigations exposed intricate plans to undermine Brazil’s democratic institutions.

More recently, prosecutors discovered that some of Bolsonaro’s cabinet members had developed detailed plans that involved assassinating Lula and his running mate as well as the head of the supreme court in the context of upending Brazil’s constitutional order and establishing a military dictatorship. These discoveries reveal how determined the coup mongers were and how close Brazil was to a complete breakdown of democratic rule, with possibly wide-ranging consequences for Brazil, South America, and global democracy. The attacks were widely condemned, including by leading European policymakers.

Crucially, US diplomatic intervention – involving the White House, the State Department, and the Department of Defence – played a significant role in discouraging Brazil’s military from backing a coup. US officials engaged directly with senior Brazilian generals, warning them of severe international repercussions if they supported Bolsonaro’s unconstitutional actions. This pressure was instrumental in maintaining Brazil’s constitutional order in this volatile period and represents a high point of US democracy defence during the administration of former President Joe Biden. The broader implications of this moment offer an instructive case study for international responses to democratic turnarounds.

European responses to Brazil’s democratic opportunity

While the EU had maintained ties with Brazil and preserved its strategic partnership with the country during the Bolsonaro government, numerous elements of the relationship were effectively downgraded. Especially towards the end of Bolsonaro’s term, when his authoritarian tendencies became impossible to overlook, high-level diplomatic encounters became rare, and Bolsonaro was increasingly isolated across Europe.

Moreover, European civil society was ever more critical of Brazil’s president – not only because of his authoritarian tendencies but also because of his denialism towards climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic as well as his controversial stances on women’s and minority rights. The Amazon Fund, financed by Norway and Germany to support Brazil’s fight against deforestation, was suspended after deforestation surged and the Brazilian government sought to exclude civil society from the fund’s decision-making processes. Yearly cabinet meetings in the framework of the Germany-Brazil strategic partnership were also suspended.

At the same time, the EU-Mercosur trade negotiations continued but did not advance significantly, especially compared with the periods before and after the Bolsonaro government. European leaders, such as France’s President Emmanuel Macron, became leading critics of Bolsonaro, and EU-Brazil relations as a whole deteriorated considerably. Bolsonaro frequently accused Europe of undue interference, particularly in the realm of deforestation and climate change.

As Brazil’s 2022 presidential election neared, several European leaders publicly spoke out in favour of Lula and hosted the Brazilian opposition leader in statesman-like fashion – especially in Paris, where Macron welcomed him at the Élysée Palace. This helped the opposition to argue that Bolsonaro had led Brazil, usually a country on good terms with the entire world, into international isolation. It was understood at the time that the EU would be unwilling to advance with trade negotiations as long as Bolsonaro was president.

In response, Bolsonaro tasked his foreign minister with organising meetings with heads of state and government in Europe to show that he was not isolated. Soon afterwards, the Brazilian president travelled to Moscow, where he met President Vladimir Putin days ahead of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and to Budapest, where he met Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for a photo op. These visits did little to weaken the opposition’s overall narrative that Brazil was isolated in the west and that Lula could restore the country’s global standing.

Along with the US, European embassies immediately recognised the 2022 election result in a coordinated way, and European leaders shared supportive messages on social media. This approach sought to build confidence in Brazil’s democratic institutions, even as Bolsonaro remained silent and refused to concede. European leaders quickly emphasised their commitment to working with the new administration on shared priorities, particularly climate change and democratic governance, in an effort to reduce the space for Bolsonaro to contest the result.

In comparison, the US put far more pressure on Bolsonaro. Before the election, the US Senate had passed a resolution urging Brazil to ensure free and fair voting. Behind closed doors, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the White House pressured the Brazilian government to accept the election result. This proactive stance demonstrated a stronger anticipation of challenges to democracy than the EU’s approach, which largely refrained from high-profile pre-election interventions.

Diplomatic and economic adjustments

After Lula’s inauguration on 1 January 2023, the EU quickly moved to rebuild ties with Brazil, focusing on areas neglected under Bolsonaro. Environmental protection, particularly in the Amazon rainforest, became a cornerstone of renewed engagement. One day after the inauguration, Germany released €35 million for the Amazon Fund. European leaders saw Lula’s victory as an opportunity to revive stalled negotiations on an EU-Mercosur trade agreement, which had been frozen, largely because of Bolsonaro’s environmental record. The two sides eventually concluded the talks in December 2024, although it is unclear whether the EU will ratify the agreement, which would be of historic proportions for both Europe and Mercosur, of which Brazil is the biggest member.

Given that ratification is still uncertain, it is too early to fully assess the scale of the EU’s re-engagement with Brazil after its democracy stepped back from the brink. Provided that the EU ratifies the deal, Europe’s rapprochement will be seen in retrospect as potentially even more meaningful than that of the US. If ratification fails, re-engagement will be viewed as less significant and will focus primarily on renewed cooperation on the fight against deforestation and climate change.

However, non-ratification would produce disappointment in Brazil and generate doubts about Europe’s willingness to reverse its diminishing economic and political influence in South America over the past decades: in 2000, for example, the EU still absorbed 28% of Brazilian exports, falling to 24% in 2007 and to 16% in 2019. There is little doubt that this decline, paired with policy uncertainty and the very public disagreements between France and Germany over the EU’s trade strategy, limits the union’s overall influence in Brazil, including in the realm of democracy policy. That is despite the fact that taken together, EU countries represent the biggest foreign investor in Brazil.

Irrespective of this long-term assessment, there is no doubt that Europe played a key role in helping Lula to quickly overcome the diplomatic isolation his predecessor had suffered. Brazil’s president became a regular guest at G7 meetings, and a large number of high-level European policymakers – both from national governments and from EU institutions – went to meet Lula in Brasília in the first months of this third (non-consecutive) term. A summit in June 2023 in Brussels marked the end of an eight-year hiatus in meetings between the EU and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.

This is particularly relevant given that Bolsonaro’s isolation was restricted to the west: in no other region of the world did Brazil suffer any significant diplomatic backlash. Despite projecting himself as pro-America, Bolsonaro did not substantially affect the quality of Brazil’s ties to other countries in the BRICS group, which initially also included Russia, India, China, and South Africa. In fact, it is likely that China would have been content to see Bolsonaro re-elected, as this would have deepened Brazil’s isolation in the west and helped Beijing’s attempts to increase its influence in the country. Indeed, while western diplomats in Brazil did little to hide their preference ahead of the 2022 vote and expressed deep concern about the spectre of Bolsonaro’s re-election, no such worries were palpable in Moscow, Beijing, or New Delhi.

While the EU’s approach demonstrated continuity and long-term investment in Brazilian democracy, it lacked the immediacy and assertiveness shown by the US. For instance, the EU did not put comparable pre-election pressure on Bolsonaro’s administration, unlike the US, which explicitly warned against electoral interference. At the same time, 50 members of the European Parliament urged European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the EU’s former foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, to impose sanctions on Brazil if Bolsonaro attempted to subvert his possible defeat through unconstitutional means.

Even though this proposal did not become official EU policy, the initiative gained significant visibility in the Brazilian media. However, it was not comparable to the pressure the US put on Brazilian generals, who ultimately failed to support Bolsonaro’s attempt to stage a military coup. Indeed, by pressuring Bolsonaro to this extent, Biden took a major risk: had the Brazilian leader been re-elected, US-Brazil relations would have deteriorated even further.

EU-Brazil frictions over Ukraine – and Gaza

The EU’s swift moves to normalise ties with Brazil after Lula’s victory helped him to overcome the country’s diplomatic isolation in the west. Meanwhile, an ongoing geopolitical divergence between Europe and Brazil over Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine produced an immediate source of friction in the bilateral relationship – a reminder that the victory of a leader committed to democracy does not automatically translate into alignment with the EU. Indeed, when it comes to today’s two most visible global conflicts – those in Ukraine and Gaza – it is no exaggeration to say that Brazil and the EU, even with Bolsonaro gone, disagree fundamentally.

Given that Lula and Bolsonaro were on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, it came as a surprise and a certain disappointment for numerous European observers to learn that their positions on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine were largely the same. Lula’s first meetings with several EU leaders were thus significantly impacted by disagreement over an issue Europe cared about deeply. Expectations that the then German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and Lula would find ample agreement proved too optimistic after a tense joint press conference less than a month after Lula’s inauguration.

While Brazil had supported United Nations (UN) resolutions condemning Russia and calling on Moscow to pull back its troops from Ukraine, the Lula government also criticised western sanctions against Russia and refused to downgrade its diplomatic ties with Moscow. Brazilian policymakers also accused the west of applying global rules and norms selectively.

When the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin, Lula criticised the court, falsely described it as an organisation biased against non-western powers, and affirmed that Putin would not face arrest in Brazil if he went to Rio de Janeiro for the 2024 G20 summit. After facing significant pushback at home, Lula reversed his position, recognising that whether to arrest Putin was a question for Brazil’s judiciary.

Frictions between Brazil and Europe deepened further after the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023. While condemning the terrorist attacks committed by Hamas, Lula criticised Israel over the high number of civilian deaths in Gaza and compared events there with the Holocaust in Europe. Lula accused the west of hypocrisy, reflecting a deepening split between Brazil and Europe over the world’s two biggest geopolitical crises. These events explain why the honeymoon between Brazil and Europe turned out to be shorter and less whole-hearted than some had expected. These disagreements, however, did not negatively affect closer cooperation in other areas, such as trade and climate change.

Environmental leadership as a democratic lever

Lula’s emphasis on environmental governance created a unique opportunity for the EU to align its climate and democracy agendas. By tying support for the Amazon rainforest to the preservation of democracy, the EU could position itself as a key partner in Brazil’s dual fight against authoritarianism and environmental degradation. This approach capitalised on Lula’s international credibility and starkly contrasted with Bolsonaro’s isolationist policies.

Europe also benefited from gridlock in Washington, which kept the Biden administration from making more significant financial commitments to help Brazil combat deforestation in the Amazon. This made it easier for Europe to position itself as Brazil’s main partner in the fight against climate change – even though China likes to point to its central role in supporting Brazil’s energy transformation as the world’s largest investor in clean energy. Europe’s re-engagement strategy included enthusiastic European support for Brazil’s hosting of the 2025 UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém.

Increased civil society cooperation

The Lula administration has prioritised re-engaging with Brazilian civil society, a move welcomed by its European counterparts. In April 2023, the European Economic and Social Committee signed a memorandum of understanding with Brazil’s Sustainable Economic and Social Development Council. This agreement aims to strengthen cooperation between EU and Brazilian civil societies on environmental, economic, and social issues, reaffirming the strategic partnership between the two sides.

The memorandum also led to the establishment of the EU-Brazil Civil Society Round Table, a forum designed to support discussions on common priorities and mutual interests. This platform enables civil society organisations (CSOs) from the EU and Brazil to collaborate on issues from human rights to sustainable development, ensuring that diverse voices contribute to policymaking.

Additionally, the EU delegation to Brazil has maintained a structured dialogue with CSOs. This engagement includes regular conversations with governmental institutions and civil society actors in areas such as human rights, reflecting a commitment to governing collaboratively and embracing moments of democratic opportunity. Such engagement is especially significant because civil society was so essential to safeguarding democracy in the face of Bolsonaro’s authoritarian threat.

Conclusion

Brazil’s 2022 presidential election underscored both the resilience and the fragility of democratic institutions in the face of authoritarian threats. For the EU, Lula’s victory offered a chance to re-engage with Brazil on shared goals like climate governance and democratic restoration. However, the EU’s cautious response highlighted limitations in its ability to act decisively in moments of democratic opportunity. Compared with the US, which adopted a more proactive stance, the EU’s approach was slower and somewhat more passive.

The EU’s decision to conclude negotiations on the EU-Mercosur trade agreement, however, is an essential step towards deepening broader ties, particularly at a time when protectionism around the world is on the rise. The accord’s successful ratification may consolidate the perception among Brazilian business elites that Bolsonaro’s authoritarian tendencies hurt the country’s economy and its prospects of signing major trade deals with western partners.

 

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This article is part of the Deep Dive “European Responses to Moments of Democratic Opportunity“.

This publication was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

Photo credit: © Ricardo Stuckert/PR, Planalto Palace