Norway seeks to expand influence in Latin America with diplomacy and environmental agenda

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Norway is more than 8,000 kilometers from South America, but the distance has not prevented Oslo from seeking a certain role in central discussions in the region. In recent weeks, the country has again become involved in issues ranging from the preservation of the Amazon to peace talks in Colombia and Venezuela.

Owner of the second highest HDI (Human Development Index) in the world and far from having the ambition of becoming a military power, Norway traditionally invests in diplomacy as a way to expand its political and economic influence🇧🇷

It is this strategy that helps explain the country’s recent role as guarantor in the complex negotiations between the ELN (National Liberation Army) guerrillas and the Colombian State and in the mediation of talks between the dictator Nicolás Maduro and the opposition in Venezuela.

The commitment to spreading the so-called soft power —influence exerted by culture and prestige without the use of weapons— dates back to the formalization of the Norwegian State, according to Vinicius Rodrigues Vieira, professor of international relations at Faap and FGV.

The country became independent from Sweden in 1905, ending a unification established in 1814, after more than 400 years under Danish rule. By conquering political autonomy relatively late, Norway was never a colonial power, like other Europeans who still have influence over former colonies.

“What other nations speak Norwegian? The language is not very widespread, the culture as well. Oslo found ways to build its soft power in international cooperation mechanisms”, explains Vieira.

A second tradition that also did not develop was war – the active contingent today is 23,000 soldiers, far below the 1.4 million in the United States, according to the organization Global Firepower. The bias adopted was, on the contrary, the pacifist one, through which the country sought to become a reference in conflict mediation.

Norway has, for example, developed extensive academic material on the subject at universities and research centers. The Peace Research Institute Oslo was founded in 1959 with a focus on studies thinking about “conditions for peaceful relations between states, groups and people”.

Researcher Wenche Hauge points out that this foreign policy emphasis was evident in 1993, when the country acted together with the US in mediating the conflict between Israel and Palestine, in the so-called Oslo Accords —although they did not end tensions, which persist to this day.

The treaty preceded a series of efforts, and Norway has since engaged in dialogues in places including Guatemala, Mali, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and the Philippines.

According to Hauge, Oslo’s political stability is fundamental for maintaining this character: changes in government, from left to right or vice versa, do not pose a risk of leaving certain processes. In addition, the country is relatively small, with 5.4 million inhabitants, and with a comfortable economic situation, owner of one of the highest per capita GDPs in the world.

All of this, added to the fact of not being part of the European Union and having less private interests elsewhere and less bureaucracy, guarantees more autonomy and facilitates flexible and quick decisions on financial assistance.

In the case of mediation in Sri Lanka, for example, Hauge recalls that only Norway and Switzerland were able to receive the parties involved because the Tamil Tigers — an armed group that wants to create an independent state — were classified as a terrorist organization by the US and European countries.

“In Latin America, the country has no history of divergences and enjoys expressive neutrality in matters of international law, unlike, for example, Russia, China and the USA”, says Ricardo Macau, professor of international law in a preparatory course for the Rio Branco Institute.

Another bet of Oslo’s soft power is environmental diplomacy, an area in which attention is turned to Brazil. Alongside Germany, Norway is one of the main donors to the Amazon Fund, created in 2008 with the aim of raising funds for actions to prevent, monitor and combat deforestation in the Legal Amazon.

According to Vieira, investments in the environmental area are a demand from the population itself, in a country that, while being a major oil producer, has part of its territory in the Arctic and suffers direct impacts from the climate crisis, with factors such as the melting of glaciers. “In Brazil, the climate agenda has gained importance in the last ten years, but in the Nordic countries it has been present since the 1970s.”

This explains, for example, the Global Seed Vault initiative in Svalbard, one of the most isolated places on the planet and designed to withstand hurricanes, earthquakes and nuclear attacks —the station stores seeds from around the world with the aim of preserving species. of the risk of extinction. It is also behind the rigidity in treaties for the area.

In 2019, the year in which Jair Bolsonaro (PL) assumed the Presidency of Brazil, the Scandinavian country suspended transfers to the Amazon Fund. In the government that is now in its final days, deforestation in the Amazon has increased by 70%, a rate considered scandalous by the Norwegian Minister of the Environment, Espen Barth Eide, who pointed to a “head-on confrontation” of views with Bolsonaro on the subject.

“Regarding Lula [presidente eleito]we observed that in the campaign he emphasized the preservation of the Amazon rainforest and the protection of indigenous peoples”, said Eide, adding that 5 billion Norwegian kroner (R$ 2.5 billion) will be made available again for the program after the PT takes office .

Analysts ponder, in any case, that, when working to increase its influence, any country also aims at economic gains in the medium and long term.

“Latin America, for example, is a major supplier of raw materials, and Norway is home to a series of companies that operate in the exploration of oil and minerals”, says Vieira. “No one invests just out of benevolence, because it is a charitable institution. When a country signals that it is an international partner, it opens doors to economic opportunities.”

In Brazil, the Norwegian company Hydro, one of the largest in the world in the sector, operates in Pará in aluminum mining. In Venezuela, Oslo may expand transactions involving oil extraction equipment.

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