A climate change activist holds a sign depicting Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro with the slogan “Exterminator of the Future,” during a protest against the Brazilian leader over the fires in the Amazon rainforest (LUIS ROBAYO/AFP/Getty Images)
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After 20 long years of negotiations, a free trade deal between Europe and South America was signed in June. The pact would greatly increase trade between the 28 countries of the European Union and the four countries of the Merosur bloc – Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.
It would be the biggest free trade deal in EU history, saving exporters around €4 billion in tariffs according to the European Commission. But the deal must still be approved by all 28 EU countries and the European Parliament, and today French President Emmanuel Macron signalled that this approval is seriously in doubt.
“Our house is burning – literally,” the French president tweeted today. “The Amazon rain forest – the lungs which produces 20% of our planet’s oxygen – is on fire. It is an international crisis”. He said he would raise the issue at this weekend’s G7 meeting in France and would refuse to ratify the Mercosur deal “as it is” unless Brazil stopped the deforestation experts say is causing unprecedented wildfires this month.
Though wildfires are common in the Amazon in this season, this year the fires have destroyed biomass at a record pace and are rapidly spreading at a rate unseen ever before. Brazil’s space agency says its satellite data shows an 84% increase in fires compared to last year. The fires are being blamed on Brazil’s right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro, who has opened up the amazon to more development and deforestation. Bolsonaro, in turn, has claimed that NGOs have deliberately set the wildfires to make him look bad.
Macron was backed today by Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar, who also said he will veto the deal unless Brazil acts to protect the rainforest. “There is no way that Ireland will vote for the EU-Mercosur free trade agreement if Brazil does not honor its environmental commitments,” he said.
“President Bolsonaro’s efforts to blame the fires on environmental NGOs is Orwellian,” Varadkar added.
Bolsonaro’s Paris Bait-And-Switch
It isn’t just about the Amazon. Macron said last year that he would veto any free trade agreement with a country not in the Paris Climate Agreement, a position later backed by EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom.
At the time he was likely referring to the United States, following President Trump’s announcement in 2017 that he will take the US out of the agreement in 2020 – the earliest possible date.
But since then, Bolsonaro promised during Brazil’s presidential campaign to take Brazil out of the pact also. Since taking office at the start of this year, he has backed away from the idea and said Brazil will stay in the agreement “for now”. But he cancelled Brazil’s planned hosting of the UN summit to work out the rules of the Paris Agreement scheduled for this year.
In Europe, there is suspicion that Bolsonaro is only keeping Brazil in for now in order to get the Mercosur deal approved, and he will leave the pact shortly after he gets EU approval.
All About The Beef
The fact that it is France and Ireland raising these objections has raised eyebrows today in Brussels. These also happen to be the two countries who have been most vocally opposed to the Mercosur deal on protectionist grounds.
They are worried that their farmers will be overwhelmed by competition from South American beef, sugar, ethanol and chicken. Beef, a staple of Argentinian and Brazilian agricultural exports, has been the most sensitive issue in these trade negotiations. Irish farmers in particular are expected to have a tough time competing with the influx.
“I don’t doubt the sincerity of Macron’s wish to protect the Paris Agreement, but it strikes me as suspicious that it’s these two countries raising the objection,” said one EU trade expert. “It makes you wonder whether the Amazon fires are being used as a smokescreen for protectionism”.
The trade and climate issues aren’t entirely unrelated. Environmental groups have warned that increased agricultural exports from South America to Europe will cause farmers to increase deforestation in order to create more agricultural land.
Bolsonaro may be pressured to make a cast-iron guarantee that he will keep Brazil in the Paris Agreement even after the Mercosur trade deal is ratified. But given that he can’t make any legally binding commitment on this front, the only thing he has is his word. And given the current poor state of relations between Europe and Brazil, his word isn’t worth very much in European capitals.
