President Dilma Rousseff met the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, and the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Durão Barroso, during the Fifth Brazil-European Union Summit, held today (4 October 2011) in Brussels. They exchanged views on the international economic situation and on the state of their respective economies.

The Brazilian President and the European leaders reaffirmed their strong commitment to make of the G20 summit in Cannes a success and to send a strong signal of unity and determination to achieve ambitious and concrete results. They agreed on the need to make concerted efforts to support strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth, to ensure the effective reform of financial markets, efficient commodity markets, and appropriate reforms of the international monetary system.

The leaders underlined the importance of employment and the social dimension of globalization, and highlighted the opportunities for growth that may be created by the progressive development of the green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication, to be discussed in the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio de Janeiro, 4-6 June 2012).

Brazil and the EU also decided to enhance cooperation in education, science, technology and innovation, benefiting from existing policy instruments and programmes, such as Brazil’s “Science Without Borders” and the EU Erasmus

Mundus. They decided to launch a platform for dialogue and exchange to foster academic mobility and cooperation between Brazil and the EU.

The Summit outlined energy as one of the building blocks of the Brazil-EU Partnership. Leaders welcomed that Brazil and EU are leading global efforts on the use of renewable energy sources and that regular exchanges take place on bioenergy. Brazil noted the importance of stable and transparent energy markets and the need for continuous efforts in energy access and sustainability, which are crucial elements for global economic growth.