Ten years after the last visit of a German chancellor to Chile, the current president Olaf Scholz will arrive in the country for a tour that also includes Argentina and Brazil.
Olaf Scholz, the head of the German Government, will soon visit Chile in the context of a tour that will also include Argentina and Brazil.
This was reported by the German media German waverecalling that the last time a president of the European country visited Chile was 10 years ago, when the position was held by Angela Merkel.
“The trip of Chancellor Scholz to Chile, Brazil and Argentina, is carried out within the framework of a need to strengthen ties with Latin America in a situation where Germany, like Latin America, are regions affected by the consequences of the war in Ukraine. In the German case, due to its energy dependence on Russian hydrocarbons; in the Chilean case, due to an economic contraction, inflation and a drop in jobs”, explains Gitte Cullmann, representative of the Heinrich-Böll Foundation, linked to the German party Los Verdes, to DW.
Relations between Chile and Germany have a long history that has its origins in the time of colonization, in the 19th century, recalls the same medium. According to him, the dark passage in the common history of both countries was the 17 years of Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship, a time when both West Germany and East Germany maintained their distance.
more than good friends
There are numerous economic, cultural, environmental and educational agreements between Chile and Germany, but perhaps the most important thing in this close relationship is the collaborative vision and friendship that the representatives of these countries have expressed, regardless of the political color that governs them.
For the former Chilean Foreign Minister Heraldo Muñoz (2014-2018), Scholz’s visit responds to the fact that “our country shares with Germany a firm adherence to democracy and Human Rights, they have close economic, commercial and investment ties, and they are bound by the recently modernized Chile-European Union Association Agreement”, he pointed out in an interview with DW.
The strategic factor
An element that adds to this bilateral relationship is the strategy behind it. Andrés Bórquez, coordinator of the Master’s Degree in Development and International Cooperation at the University of Chile, explains that “Scholz’s visit reflects the willingness to maintain a close political dialogue in a climate of mutual trust that has been maintained over time.”
“This visit opens a space to elevate these relations to a new level, more strategic for both countries in energy matters, for example. Germany has a need for energy and Chile aims to be a provider of renewable energy in the long term, in addition to emerging as a relevant provider in electromobility thanks to lithium, something that is of great interest to the Germans. So, we have a pragmatic look that reinforces the relationship between the two countries,” says the academic to DW.
Although it seems that the Chilean-German relationship could not be better, Gitte Cullmann hopes that this visit will “produce a more intense cooperation in efforts to contain the consequences of climate change and improve environmental protection practices. It would also be expected that both governments show greater cooperation on the issue of green hydrogen. Chile is interested in developing this energy industry and decarbonizing national production processes.
Germany is interested in contributing to its development in Chile and seeing the possibility of an economic exchange in that sector. The same is true of electromobility: Germany is interested in helping to develop value chains in the Chilean industry and contributing to the technological and scientific development of the country,” concludes the representative of the Heinrich-Böll Foundation.