Sweden tries to save EU-Mercosur agreement, paralyzed by Brazilian environmental issue

Sweden leads a movement in the European Union (EU) to try to save the trade agreement with Mercosur, paralyzed amid dissatisfaction with the Brazilian government’s environmental policy.

The efforts, however, are met with opposition from France, which insists the treaty should not be implemented without “solid” guarantees about compliance with the Paris Agreement.

Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that a group of at least 10 countries was preparing a letter to the European Commission advocating the unblocking of free trade pacts because of the Ukraine war.

To the Estadão/BroadcastEstadão’s real-time news system, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasized that the agreement will not be ratified without safeguards in the environmental area.

Finalized in 2019 after two decades of negotiations, the treaty between the two blocs was celebrated as the first major victory of President Jair Bolsonaro in foreign policy.

The project needs to receive the approval of each of the national parliaments of the two regions, but the process has stalled in the face of the growing repercussion in Europe of environmental management in Brasilia.

In April, deforestation alerts in the Amazon exceeded 1,000 square kilometers and renewed the record for the month, according to the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe).

The agreement document has a specific chapter that provides environmental guidelines, but opponents consider the provision insufficient.

In 2020, the European Parliament passed a symbolic motion that indicated that the trade treaty could not be approved under current conditions. The information is from the newspaper. The State of São Paulo.