Agreement with Mercosur depends on Brazil at COP26, EU says
The plans Brazil announces at the Climate Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, less than a couple of weeks from now, will have an impact in Europe on the development of discussions about the European Union-Mercosur free trade agreement. That is the opinion of the influential president of the European Parliament Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, Pascal Canfin.In an interview to Valor, he said that nowadays in Europe the credibility of President Jair Bolsonaro in the environmental area is close to zero and waits to see what the positioning of Brazil. In any case, he warns that the EU-Mercosur agreement only has a chance of being approved in the European Parliament with the inclusion of sanctions in case Brazil and its partners do not uphold their commitments in the environmental area.According to Mr. Canfin, this means that if the commitments undertaken in the sustainable development chapter, to combat deforestation for example, are not implemented, Europe may suspend the tariff reductions or quotas (imported volumes at a lower rate) provided for in the bi-regional agreement for products from Brazil and the rest of Mercosur. For him, there is no way to convince the European Parliament to ratify the agreement without this.Faced with the resistance of several member states and the majority of MEPs to the bi-regional agreement, the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, decided to propose at the beginning of the year the elaboration of an additional document, without reopening the agreement. With this, it could tie Mercosur and especially Brazil more tightly with specific commitments on sustainability, climate change, and implementation of the Paris Agreement.Excerpts from the interview:Valor: Regarding Brazil, the government signals that it will have ambition in Glasgow. Is the Brazilian government credible?Pascal Canfin: Today, seen from Europe, the credibility of the current president of Brazil on climate is close to zero due to the absence of the fight against deforestation. But everyone can change. Let’s see what they will announce.Valor: What Brazil puts on the table in Glasgow could impact the EU-Mercosur agreement?Mr. Canfin: Yes, because the majority of the European Parliament is opposed to the current agreement, once it does not offer any guarantee that we will not contribute even more to deforestation. That’s why we want to reinforce in the ongoing discussions the granularity and the ability to actually...
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