Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva reaffirmed his readiness to seal a long-stalled trade deal between the EU and the Mercosur bloc during a meeting with Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in Brasilia on Wednesday (6 March).
Negotiations between the EU and the Mercosur bloc, which includes Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, started 25 years ago but their fate is still uncertain, mostly due to opposition from EU countries.
Lula regretted that the deal could not materialize at December’s Mercosur summit in Rio de Janeiro, which coincided with the end of Spain’s six-month presidency of the EU Council. However, he remained positive about the ongoing negotiations, brushing aside France’s opposition.
“Today we are ready to sign a Mercosur deal, but France has some issues with its farmers,” Lula told reporters in a press conference. “My peace of mind is that the European Union doesn’t depend on France to make the agreement,” he added.
France, which has intensified its criticism on the trade deal, recently pressed the European Commission to halt negotiations in a bid to appease protesting farmers.
French farmers fear that the agreement will lead to an influx of cheaper agricultural imports, particularly beef and poultry from agricultural powerhouses Argentina and Brazil, into the EU, and have staunchly opposed the deal during the protests.
“It is no longer a matter of willing or liking it; politically, economically, and geographically, we need to make this agreement and send a signal to the world that we need to move forward,” Lula noted.
In response, Sanchez applauded Lula’s leadership in advancing talks and pledged to continue the work towards a swift conclusion, emphasising that Spain is “not the problem”.
“After the war in Ukraine, Europe learned the lesson that it needs to find new partners and diversify trade,” said the Spanish prime minister.
Same old
The EU and Mercosur reached a political agreement on the final shape of the text in 2019, after two decades of negotiations. However, its ratification was put on hold due to environmental and human rights concerns raised by France and other EU countries during the mandate of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro.
A new opportunity emerged last year as Lula was re-elected in Brazil and Spain, a strong advocate of the EU-Mercosur deal, took over the EU Council presidency.
Despite high hopes for an announcement during December’s Mercosur summit in Brazil, the victory of far-right populist leader Javier Milei in Argentina’s November elections and renewed criticisms from French President Emmanuel Macron of the deal’s environmental implications derailed the ratification once again.
Macron and Lula will meet in Brasilia on 27 March to discuss the Mercosur agreement among other topics.
[Edited by Angelo Di Mambro and Zoran Radosavljevic]
