Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro demonstrated on Sunday at the G20 summit in Rome what he thinks of international meetings that are also or primarily about climate protection.

He skipped most of the consultations in the conference center in south-east Rome and also the appointment for the “family photo” at the Trevi Fountain in the heart of the old town.

Matthias Rüb

Political correspondent for Italy, the Vatican, Albania and Malta based in Rome.

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In Italian media comments on Monday it could have been worse: Instead of simply moving the assembled heads of state and government in front of the Trevi Fountain, Bolsonaro - like Anita Ekberg once did in Federico Fellini's classic "La Dolce Vita" from 1960 - can take a bath in the fountain.

Brazilian journalists reported attacks by the president's security staff on the sidelines of a sympathy rally by around four dozen Bolsonaro supporters in Rome.

As the newspapers O Globo and Folha de São Paulo unanimously wrote, plainclothes security guards were violent, pushing and pushing cameramen and reporters at the rally.

Instead of flying on Sunday evening from Rome to Glasgow for the COP26 climate summit, like most heads of state and government, Bolsonaro stayed in Italy.

Bolsonaro has Italian ancestry

While the Brazilian Environment Minister Joaquim Leite led the delegation from Brasília in Glasgow, Bolsonaro traveled to the town of Anguillara Veneta in the province of Padua on Monday.

There, the city administration, under the leadership of Mayor Alessandra Buoso, decided to give Bolsonaro honorary citizenship.

The Bolzonaros, as the family name was still spelled at the time, emigrated to Brazil from the small town on the lower Adige River in Veneto in the last quarter of the 19th century.

Today there are around 60,000 Brazilians with family roots in the northeastern Italian region of Veneto, most of them living in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul.

Not only because Mayor Buoso belongs to the right-wing national party Lega of the former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, Bolsonaro's honor sparked a violent political dispute.

The extremely popular President of the Veneto Region, Luca Zaia, also belongs to the Lega Salvinis.

We know from Zaia that he had come out as an ardent supporter of his emigrated "compatriot" at the time of Bolsonaro's candidacy for the Brazilian presidency in 2018.

Today, Zaia is considered the leading moderate force in the Lega.

Criticism of Brazil's handling of the pandemic

Arturo Lorenzoni, social democratic opposition leader in the regional parliament of Veneto, sharply criticized the award for Bolsonaro.

He recalled Bolsonaro's devastating pandemic policy, who stubbornly denied the danger of the coronavirus and the effectiveness of the vaccines.

With his climate and environmental policy, the ongoing deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, Bolsonaro disqualified himself for an award such as the honorary citizenship of Anguillara Veneta.

Mayor Buoso defended the decision.

The award goes "not primarily to the person", but is aimed at all the people that the President represents.

With the honorary citizenship, the city expresses its gratitude to the country of Brazil for the friendly reception of the migrants of the time.