The Brazil-European Union strategic partnership, from Lula to Dilma Rousseff: a shift of focus

Abstract

The article concentrates on the role which the strategic partnership with the European Union played in Brazilian foreign policy from 2007 to 2015, and the shift of focus that took place during the Lula and Dilma Rousseff administrations. It analyses the progress of such strategic partnership and the exchanges per sector carried out within related frameworks. It also discusses and segregates the so-called sector dialogues into two types and argues that, since the beginning of the Rousseff administration, multilateral exchanges encountered growing obstacles to becoming successful, whereas bilateral dialogues found increasingly favorable ground.