{"id":4373,"date":"2014-11-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/new.conectas.org.inf.br\/wp\/noticias\/asktheminister\/"},"modified":"2017-12-09T18:34:28","modified_gmt":"2017-12-09T18:34:28","slug":"asktheminister","status":"publish","type":"noticia","link":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/noticias\/asktheminister\/","title":"#AskTheMinister","content":"

\"\"The White Paper<\/u><\/a>, a public document containing the principles, priorities and outlines of Brazilian foreign policy, will be published before the end of the year, said Foreign Minister Luiz Alberto Figueiredo at a hearing held on Wednesday (November 19) in the Foreign Relations Commission of the lower house of Congress.<\/p>\n

The document is an important demand by society and it was the most mentioned topic in the online public consultation<\/u><\/a> organized by the lower house in the weeks leading up to the hearing. Figueiredo, however, did not answer Congressman Florisvaldo Fier, who asked whether a preliminary version of the White Paper would be debated by society before the definitive release.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will be the overview of the activities of the Ministry and the outlines of the country\u2019s foreign policy. We intend to step up the public debate and contribute to the discussion of foreign policy in Brazil,\u201d said the minister.<\/p>\n

According to Camila Asano, coordinator of Foreign Policy at Conectas, \u201cbefore publishing the definitive version, the Foreign Ministry should first release and debate with society a preliminary document, as was the case with the bill that created the Civil Framework for the Internet. This would help prevent the White Paper being an innocuous document from the outset.\u201d<\/p>\n

Popular participation<\/strong><\/p>\n

The hearing this Wednesday was considered an important forum for dialogue between members of Congress and the Foreign Ministry. \u201cIt was an exercise in democracy, since under democratic rule of law all policies, including foreign policy, ought to be debated and rulers need to be accountable,\u201d said Asano. <\/p>\n

\u201cMembers of Congress, as representatives of the people, need to be increasingly more open to listening to the concerns of the population and then posing the questions that need to be asked to public officials,\u201d she added. It was with this in mind that Conectas asked the members of the lower house commission about the questions they would put to the Foreign Minister before the hearing. Regrettably, none of the members responded directly to the questions submitted by email and Twitter.<\/p>\n

On the subject of human rights, the main question posed by the commission members was whether \u201cBrazil\u2019s preference for its partners is based on the trade balance or on human rights?\u201d.<\/p>\n

The question was asked by Congressman Ronaldo Caiado, the leader of the rural caucus and one of the 29 members who voted against the constitutional amendment on slave labor.<\/p>\n

In response, the minister said \u201cthere is no doubt that we have a fundamental interest in stability, democracy and prosperity, and it is fundamental for us that there is respect for human rights, since it is a constitutional principle\u201d.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cThe prevalence of human rights in Brazil\u2019s international relations is indeed a constitutional obligation (Article 4, II) and it should effectively exist. It shouldn\u2019t just feature in speeches, much less be used as bargaining by either the opposition or the incumbency in political conflicts,\u201d said Asano.<\/p>\n

Figueiredo addressed the controversial visit to Brazil by the Venezuelan minister El\u00edas Jaua and his meeting with the MST (Brazil\u2019s Landless Rural Workers Movement), which polarized much of the debate between the commission members.<\/p>\n

He also emphasized the Foreign Ministry\u2019s support for the creation of the multilateral bank for the BRICS<\/u><\/a> countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is an important instrument that helps with the soundness of the reserves of its members and also helps promote international financial stability to the extent that it complements the current financial protection network,\u201d explained the minister. The new bank will be established to invest in infrastructure and development projects in emerging countries and to diversify the lines of credit beyond those offered by existing institutions, namely the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).<\/p>\n

One topic that was not discussed at the hearing was the definition of human rights standards to govern the granting of credit by the recently created BRICS Bank.<\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/div>","excerpt":"

Foreign Policy White Paper to be released in 2014, says Minister Figueiredo at a hearing with representatives of society<\/p>\n","author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"tema":[],"class_list":["post-4373","noticia","type-noticia","status-publish","hentry","category-news"],"acf":{"links_para_referencia":null,"author":null,"subtitle-pt":null},"yoast":{"focuskw":"","title":"","metadesc":"","linkdex":"","metakeywords":"","meta-robots-noindex":"","meta-robots-nofollow":"","meta-robots-adv":"","canonical":"","redirect":"","opengraph-title":"","opengraph-description":"","opengraph-image":"","twitter-title":"","twitter-description":"","twitter-image":""},"featured_image":[],"terms":{"acoes_categorias":[],"acoes_tags":[],"category":[{"term_id":7,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":7,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1550,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0","permalink":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/category\/news\/","relative_link":"category\/news\/","langs":{"en":"news","br":"noticia-conectas"}}],"post_tag":[]},"author_name":"Leonardo Medeiros","author_nicename":"leonardo-medeiros","protected":false,"langs":{"en":"asktheminister","br":"asktheminister"},"permalink":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/noticias\/asktheminister\/","relative_url":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/noticias\/asktheminister\/","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noticias\/4373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noticias"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/noticia"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4373"},{"taxonomy":"tema","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tema?post=4373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}