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European Commission - Speech [Check Against Delivery] Speech by Commissioner Jozef Síkela at the Opening of the Future Affairs Forum Rio de Janeiro, 22 June 2026 Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, bom dia. This is my first time in Rio. And let me tell you: This city truly lives up to its reputation: beautiful, vibrant, and open to the world. It is a great pleasure to represent here the European Union at the ...
European Commission - Speech [Check Against Delivery] Speech by Commissioner Jozef Síkela at the Opening of the Future Affairs Forum Rio de Janeiro, 22 June 2026 Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, bom dia. This is my first time in Rio. And let me tell you: This city truly lives up to its reputation: beautiful, vibrant, and open to the world. It is a great pleasure to represent here the European Union at the Future Affairs Forum. And there is no better venue to talk about the world of tomorrow than at this stunning Museum of Tomorrow. Let me start with a simple question. Think back to the first mobile phone you ever owned. How much did it know about you? And where was that information actually stored? In the phone, or in a data centre somewhere you had never heard of? The answer to this question has changed completely. More and more of our lives has moved online. Our work, our money, our travel, our health. The online world now often holds more information about us than the physical one. And in that world, the same things matter as in this one. Security matters. Privacy matters. Sovereignty. Diversification. The digital infrastructure is just as fragile as the physical. And when it fails the consequences are just as serious. A cyberattack can shut down a hospital, an airport, a bank. We are as exposed online as we are on the street. The world around us is changing fast. Over the past year, rules and values have started to fade from global politics. Countries are chasing quick deals instead of lasting alliances. Power is being used through pressure and coercion. The online world follows the same logic. Any dependency is a vulnerability. And with that, the value of a partner you can trust has never been higher. This is where Europe makes a different offer. We believe partnership you can rely on should not be rare. It should be the norm. The me-first approach serves few and leaves everyone else more exposed. We choose the opposite. We invest in partnership built on mutual benefit. Win-win approach is in our DNA. That is what the Global Gateway is about. Europe's strategy to invest in reliable partnerships through projects that build resilience, and develop the societies they serve. Since 2021, Europe and its companies have mobilised 306 billion euros for such investments. From clean energy to transport to digital networks across the world. And we are as good a partner in the physical world as in the digital one. Our digital offer rests on one principle. We build the digital infrastructure to empower our partners, not to entrap them. Your data stays under your laws. The networks are open. It is capacity you build and control. And with investments in infrastructure, we invest in skills that stay with your people and create new jobs and opportunities. This human-centric approach matters. When a single actor controls your connectivity, your data and your software, it also limits your choices. Prices can rise. Services can be switched off. Data can be turned against the people it belongs to. The opportunities built in the online world can be lost. What we come with is the partnership of equal partners. With Brazil, we have been developing it for more than thirty years, through trust, through benefits to both sides and with mutual respect. Europe is Brazil's second largest trading partner and the source of almost half of its foreign direct investments. The new agreement between the EU and Mercosur takes us further, creating a market of 750 million people that is predictable, open, and holds to high environmental and social standards. Recently, we have also signed a new Digital Partnership. It sets a shared agenda on how data is handled, on artificial intelligence, on connectivity, and on the rules for online platforms. Since January, data can already move freely and safely between us, because each side trusts the other's standards. Let me give you one example of our Global Gateway investment you can see. The BELLA cable already links Portugal to Brazil, 6,000 kilometres of fibre beneath the Atlantic. Now Team Europe is extending it into the Amazon. We are laying two new undersea cable systems to connect the states of Pará and Maranhão, and building land and satellite links to reach the most remote communities. The result is concrete. Fast, affordable internet for 350,000 students. For 250 quilombola communities, 110 Indigenous villages and 100 communities along the rivers. And it does more than connect. Linked to Copernicus, our Earth observation system, it gives people in remote areas early warning when disaster strikes, and helps them watch over the forest and stop deforestation before it spreads. Brazil is also helping lead a Global Gateway project to build an EU-LAC supercomputing network across 14 countries. It will let scientists share data, run simulations and develop the technologies of the future, on climate, on health, on clean energy, through cooperation rather than competition. Ladies and gentlemen, when we look at the world today, there is no shortage of action. Every day brings another headline. A drone strike, a trade war, a climate disaster. What the world needs is more thinking. More honest debate. More cooperation. More forums like this one. That may be the real lesson of the Museum of Tomorrow. The future is not something that happens to us. It is something we have to build. And the strongest future is the one we build together. Connectivity, skills, sovereignty. That is our offer to Brazil. Opportunities that last. Obrigado. SPEECH/26/1416
Speech Brief