Announced as the first major international victory of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the agreement between the European Union and Mercosur gained new articulation to try to speed up the ratification process in the European bloc. Congressional proposals seen as harmful to the environment, however, jeopardize this new effort.
The agreement was sealed in June 2019, after more than two decades of negotiations and with Bolsonaro just six months at the helm of Palácio do Planalto. The agreed text provides that more than 90% of Mercosur exports to the group’s countries will have zero tariffs within ten years.
To enter into force, however, it needs to be ratified by the parliaments of the EU and Mercosur and also by the member countries of the two blocs. Throughout the Bolsonaro government, the euphoria over the signing of the agreement gradually gave way to criticism from Europeans, mostly directed at the Brazilian government’s environmental policy.
After a period in the fridge, supporters of the agreement began to see a new window of opportunity with the outcome of the elections in France. People who follow the process recall that the re-elected president, Emmanuel Macron, left the issue aside during the electoral dispute to avoid political friction, as there is resistance to the agreement on the part of French unions.
Interlocutors at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil see a recent move in Europe to advance the so-called “split” from now on. This mechanism, in practice, is the division of the agreement between the EU and Mercosur.
In this format, the commercial part can be ratified only by the European Parliament and not by all the countries of the bloc.
The themes of sustainability and governance would be left for a second moment.
wanted by Sheet in the last two weeks, the European Union delegation in Brasilia did not respond to the reporter’s questions.
At the same time that efforts are being made to unlock the ratification of the agreement, there has also been concern on the part of European experts, environmentalists and politicians about the advance in the Chamber of Deputies of the bill that allows mining activities in indigenous lands.
In addition, there is great pressure from the ruralist caucus to vote on the proposals that make the use of pesticides more flexible, that allow land regularization of invaded lands and that reduce the rigidity of the legislation on environmental licensing – all three are already in the Senate.
“In terms of the use of pesticides, there is a lot of pressure. And [o defensivo] it is almost no longer being used abroad due to time and active ingredients, and we are only going to start using it now. So I don’t see why Germany use it, the United States use it and we can’t use it. There it is 10 years old and here it still needs to be regulated”, says Senator Zequinha Marinho (PL-PA).
“So I see no resistance [da União Europeia] as a result. Of course, we are not only fighting over a regulatory issue, it is above all a commercial issue. The problem there is purely the market and, when the market enters, you know that everyone plays the way that suits them best.”
The Agricultural Parliamentary Front had a meeting on Wednesday with the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), to seek to speed up the processing of these projects of interest.
A week earlier, however, Pacheco himself had participated in a meeting with European ambassadors, at the headquarters of the European Union delegation. The president of the Senate was rightly asked about the progress of this agenda.
Pacheco replied that all these projects “are having the necessary cadence” and are being processed “without precocity, without oversight”.
“We are studying and evaluating what is the balance point in relation to each of these projects, which can reconcile Brazil’s economic development, its economic strength, especially in agribusiness and industry, with the preservation of the environment,” he said. to the ambassadors.
The concern with the projects in the National Congress is added to a political resistance to the figure of President Jair Bolsonaro and his environmental policy. In this scenario, one of the bets is the defeat of the president in October and the consequent negotiation with the next chief executive.
“It’s a set [fator Bolsonaro com a polêmica pauta do Congresso]”, says MEP Miguel Urbán, who was in BrasÃlia at the invitation of federal deputy Fernanda Melchionna (PSOL-RS).
“The problem is that Bolsonaro has also come to be seen as a criminal in relation to the indigenous population, as a genocider, as an ‘ecocide’. The problem is the credibility of the government”, he adds.
Urbán had presented a question to the presidency of the European Commission about what the institution’s position would be specifically on the new environmental licensing bill. According to him, Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis’ response was in the sense that this issue could jeopardize the ratification of the agreement – by hurting trade issues.
Melchionna assesses that, “in addition to the criminal way in which Bolsonaro treated the pandemic, the environmental devastation in Brazil also had international repercussions.”
“Projects such as self-licensing and attacks on indigenous lands have a broad rejection and solidarity from international environmental movements. MEP Miguel Urbán has been a spokesman for these complaints in the European Parliament”, he says.
The Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the Mercosur countries take into account the relevance of agricultural and environmental issues for the viability of the trade agreement, together with European institutions and national and regional parliaments.
The folder argues that there was great understanding on the part of European negotiators that the agreement is the most advanced chapter ever negotiated by the European Union on trade and sustainable development. Even so, he adds, Mercosur agreed to negotiate an additional document with more commitments.
“For Brazil, the document must be of reciprocal application, it must not imply the reopening of the agreement or affect the balance of the concessions reached therein, and it must not contemplate the possibility of sanctions, a possibility in disagreement with the multilateral treatment given to the subject and with the scope of the commitments reflected in the negotiation of the chapter”, he says in a note.
The Itamaraty also states that ratification would generate a series of positive externalities, such as “increased quality of life and economic conditions, as well as, consequently, greater environmental protection, since poverty is an important vector of environmental destruction” .
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