2023-06-24 11:00:07
The presidents of Brazil and Franceia, Lula da Silva and Macron, respectively, are still in negotiations for the EU and Mercosur agreement.
The President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, spoke out today in Paris about the state of the negotiations on the free trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and Mercosur – regarding which countries like France pose many obstacles – and that there are “threats” between blocks that should be strategic partners.
During his speech at the closing of the Summit for a new global financial pact, an initiative promoted by French President Emmanuel Macron himself, Lula stressed: “I have no other request than that, to have an agreement with the European Union.”
Specifically, the Brazilian president asserted that with the “additional burden” imposed by some European partners, there can be no agreement.
“I ask for an answer. How can you have a strategic association with threats that are made against strategic partners?” he said, without pointing to specific names, but under the watchful eye of two great European heavyweights: Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Lula came to this thorny issue after having recalled the enormous global inequalities and the challenges faced by countries like his, which combine the fight against poverty and climate change (central axes of this Paris summit).
Among the great challenges, he assured that the issue of climate change is not “secondary”, as demonstrated by his commitment “of honor” towards zero deforestation in the Amazon by 2030.
“It is necessary to restore the degraded land, then we will also have to deal with international agreements, trade agreements,” he said.
Lula, who will be received at the Elysee just after the end of this summit, had already announced before arriving in Paris that he will talk with Macron about the status of the EU-Mercosur agreement during his visit to Paris, since he considers that the conditions they are asking for right now the Europeans to the block of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay “are unacceptable”.
He considers that these penalize Latin Americans, especially those related to climate agreements, since “no country has respected the Copenhagen or Paris agreements” and “a little more flexibility is needed” to achieve a good agreement for all.
France is one of the nations that has historically put the most obstacles in the negotiations, which have been going on for more than two decades and which have been seeing a new momentum since Lula’s re-election.
The EU-Mercosur agreement will be one of the issues that will be the focus of the summit of leaders of the European Union and Celac on July 17 and 18 in Brussels, and which will be held under Spain’s recently inaugurated rotating presidency of the EU, which is very Advocate for an agreement.
By EFE Agency
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