BRAZIL’S President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva began a two-day visit to Barcelona today where he and his Spanish counterpart Pedro Sanchez will meet with other leaders who are concerned with the fate of the democratic order and the rise of the far right.

Lula and Mr Sanchez are both outspoken critics of US President Donald Trump, who has threatened both with punitive tariffs. 

The two leaders, along with ministers from their cabinets, are set to sign agreements regarding their economies, technology and social policies.

Their bilateral meeting will be a prelude for the following day’s meeting with the other leaders for the IV Meeting in Defence of Democracy. 

The event was launched by Brazil and Spain in 2024 as a forum to exchange ideas aimed at combating the “extremism, polarisation and misinformation” that undermines participatory democracy, the organisers say. 

While both Lula and Mr Sanchez have spoken out against President Trump’s policies, including his decision to attack Iran along with Israel, Lula said that the multilateral summit should not be seen in that way.

“This is not going to going to be an anti-Trump meeting,” Lula told Spanish newspaper El Pais on Thursday. “We are going to discuss the state of democracy, to see what went wrong and what we have to do to repair it.”

The meeting will include European Council president Antonio Costa, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Colombia President Gustavo Petro, and other leaders of countries from Uruguay and Lithuania to Ghana and Albania.

This meeting will be followed by the inaugural Global Progressive Mobilisation, a gathering of left-wing politicians and policymakerlaunched by Mr Sanchez and former Swedish prime minister Stefan Lofven, who is now president of the Party of European Socialists.