2024-10-26 03:30:00
Por who is closely following the negotiations of the free trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and Mercosur, yet another announcement of his the impending finalization might make you smile. But this time everything suggests that the signature is really in sight. It could already take place at the G20 meeting organized on 18 and 19 November in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. And this should make headlines everywhere.
While Emmanuel Macron swore to himself earlier this year that the negotiations had broken down, it turns out that not only have they never broken down, but they have never been this close to success. And for good reason: weakened on the European scene by the French political situation and the budget crisis he caused, the head of state is now reluctant to raise his voice and seems on the verge of
capitulate.
The latest news is that the European Commission is even trying to buy Paris’ support with an agricultural compensation fund about which little is known at the moment. Except that it is an implicit recognition that this agreement is harmful to farmers, while its promoters have so far tried hard to openly deny the slightest impact!
But the facts are stubborn: how can we argue that every year we import, among other things, 99,000 tons of beef, 180,000 tons of poultry, 25,000 tons of pork, 35,000 tons of cheese and 45,000 tons of honey? additional low price coming from the giant agricultural companies of Brazil or Argentina will not exercise unfair competition against European farmers? Those same farmers who for months continued to cry about the impossibility of earning a living with their trade and who were showered with beautiful promises. Already gone, of course.
Environmental disaster
Another big problem: Even though European standards are far from ambitious enough, Mercosur countries are not required to meet the same obligations, whether in terms of GMOs, farming conditions or even pesticides. For example, almost a third of the pesticides authorized in Brazil are banned on European soil. It doesn’t matter: let’s sign a free trade agreement to stimulate imports of food produced using these banned pesticides, and fill our plates with them!
And, as usual, the multinationals will take the cake. In Brazil, for example (the world’s second largest producer of beef), the meat export market is controlled by a handful of multinationals such as JBS, which slaughters more than 70,000 cattle every day and generates a turnover of 73 billion dollars (67 billion euros). 2023.
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