President Lula departs for G7 summit amid trade friction—Brazilian delegation braces for tight France entry protocols

Early on 14 June President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva boarded the presidential Airbus A319CJ in Brasília bound for Évian-les-Bains, France, where he will attend the 2026 G7 summit as a guest. While the trip’s diplomatic agenda centres on tariffs and the EU’s looming meat-import ban, the logistics of moving a 120-person delegation through France’s heightened border-security posture have become a case study in large-scale government mobility.



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Since the Paris Olympics in 2024, French authorities require foreign state aircraft to submit passenger manifests 48 hours in advance and conduct biometric enrolment on arrival. The Brazilian Air Force (FAB) confirmed that all aides, security staff and embedded journalists carried biometric laissez-passer documents issued under Brazil’s new e-ID system, which integrates a QR code linked to the federal Gov.br portal. Officials say the digital ID cut clearance times at Évian’s temporary head-of-state terminal from 45 to 18 minutes compared with the 2023 G20 in Delhi. Trade tensions nonetheless seep into travel plans. France has signalled that any bilateral meeting will take place at a French-controlled venue, not at Brazil’s consulate in Annecy, citing “operational security”. Separately, the EU meat-import embargo taking effect in September forced Brazilian agribusiness lobbyists to book last-minute commercial seats to Geneva rather than Paris due to protest-related capacity caps at Charles de Gaulle. For Brazilian exporters and multinational mobility managers the summit’s outcome could redefine travel demand. A thaw with the United States—whose delegation flies in on multiple C-32 jets—may revive stalled Open Skies negotiations and eventually add frequencies on the Brazil-US route. Conversely, prolonged friction with Brussels could trigger retaliatory visa or sanitary-certificate checks on EU arrivals, increasing compliance burdens for European assignees in Brazil. In the meantime, companies with executives attending G7-fringe events in nearby Lausanne should note French-Swiss cross-border checkpoints will apply Schengen Entry/Exit System (EES) testing during the summit window. Travellers are advised to allow an extra 40 minutes at the frontier and to ensure passports have at least two blank pages for EES stamps used during the trial phase.