Fernandez and Lula reject EU terms for FTAs Image: AFP
Against the background of the negotiations on a free trade agreement between the Mercosur states and the EU, Argentina and Brazil have rejected environmental demands from Brussels as ‘unacceptable’.
Against the background of the negotiations on a free trade agreement between the Mercosur states and the EU, Argentina and Brazil have rejected environmental demands from Brussels as “unacceptable”. The EU “presents us with a one-sided vision of sustainable development excessively focused on the environment,” Argentine President Alberto Fernandez, host of the Mercosur summit, said on Tuesday in Puerto Iguaz, in the north of his country.
The agreement between the EU and the Mercosur free trade area, which currently consists of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, was signed in 2019. However, it has not yet been ratified. This was partly related to European concerns about the environmental policies of Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who was in office from 2019 to 2022.
Following the assumption of the presidency by left-leaning Luiz Incio Lula da Silva in January 2023, talks on the deal had resumed.
However, the Mercosur states object to the environmental requirements for the South American states contained in an additional document to the agreement, which relate to agriculture.
Brazil’s President Lula said on Tuesday that the document was “unacceptable”. “Strategic partners don’t negotiate on the basis of distrust and the threat of sanctions,” he criticized. “We are not interested in deals that doom us to be exporters of commodities, minerals and oil forever,” he added.
Fernandez reinforced the criticism: “No one can condemn us to be suppliers of raw materials that others process and sell us at exorbitant prices,” he said. Argentina and Brazil are the two largest economies in South America.
Lula, who took over as rotating chairman of the Mercosur group on Tuesday, announced he would prepare a counter-proposal. It is “essential that Mercosur come up with a quick and energetic response” to the European demands.
A summit meeting between the EU and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) will take place in Brussels on 17 and 18 July for the first time in eight years. The Mercosur zone currently covers 67 percent of South America’s economic output.
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