By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-03-20 22:06:33 | Updated at 2025-03-21 14:12:43
16 hours ago
A high-ranking Brazilian government official issued a broad criticism of Western developed countries including France on Thursday, in the run-up to a meeting of Brics energy ministers in the South American country’s capital.
Energy Minister Alexandre Silveira said in a press briefing that the world’s developed countries had “no interest” in helping developing nations industrialise, and that Brics members would need to work together to achieve this goal.
The minister veered into the diatribe after a question about criticism about Brazil’s oil exploration in the equatorial fringe of the Amazon.
“There is not a single time when I go to France where Le Monde and other French media do not question Brazil’s position ... to [insist on] a global energy transition ... and, at the search for oil off the Brazilian coast.”
“I always respond, very objectively, that it’s a shame that France doesn’t have oil and has one of the biggest oil companies in the world, even exploring off the Brazilian coast,” he said.
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Silveira, who is chairing the Brics Energy Working Group in Brasília this week, also excoriated “those who proclaim international interests that are most certainly not ours”.
