Brussels, 10 November 2019
Dear friends,
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), which represents fifty million workers, has received with great joy news of the release of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 580 days after his political arrest at the Federal Police Superintendency in Curitiba. Today more than ever it is clear that the judges and prosecutors related to Bolsonaro wanted to imprison the ideas of justice and social progress that Lula and you represent.
Lula has been, and is, a point of reference for the entire international trade union movement.
I ask you to transmit our congratulations to comrade Lula, to his family, to the CUT leadership and to the PT president, Gleisi Hoffmann, while reiterating the willingness of the ETUC and our affiliated organizations to maintain pressure on the European Union and other international organizations to denounce the arbitrariness of the Bolsonaro government and the setbacks of the rights acquired during the mandates of Lula and Dilma.
We wish great success to the CUT and to the other Brazilian organisations that have convened the mobilisation on the 13th in Sao Paulo against Bolsonaro's antisocial policies.
Fraternal and supportive embrace
Luca Visentini
Secretary General of the ETUC-ETUC