RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On Friday, for the first time, German Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced her “serious doubts” about the future of the trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and the Mercosur countries, given the ecological threat looming over the Amazon in Brazil.
“We have serious doubts about whether the agreement can be implemented as planned when one looks at the situation” in the Amazon, said the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Steffen Seibert.
The EU and the Mercosur countries (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay) signed the extensive free trade agreement last year.
But for it to be permanently validated it still needs to be ratified by all national parliaments. The Austrian and, very recently, the Dutch parliament rejected the pact in its current form. Other countries such as Belgium, France, Ireland, and Luxembourg expressed criticism.
So far, Germany has been one of the main proponents of this agreement.
The statements made by the German government on Friday add to the criticism in much of Europe, as the text is under attack by environmentalists, who fear it will affect the environment.
At stake is the greater opening of European markets to South American meat, since cattle raising is responsible for 80 percent of the deforestation in the Amazon, according to the WWF association.
To address these concerns, a chapter was integrated into the final text that specifically addressed “forest conservation”.
“We are skeptical”
But the German chancellor is now voicing “serious concerns” about the “continued deforestation” and “fires”, which have multiplied in recent weeks in the Amazon.
“We are skeptical,” said spokesperson Steffen Seibert. “In this context”, Berlin has “serious doubts about the planned implementation” of the agreement, and specifically of this clause. “The Amazon affects the whole world,” he added.
This is the first time that Merkel has expressed such criticism of the pact. Last summer, the multiplication of fires in the world’s largest rainforest shocked the international community.
French President Emmanuel Macron had threatened not to ratify the agreement unless the Brazilian government of Jair Bolsonaro took the necessary steps to protect the forest. However, the fires increased by 28 percent in July 2020 compared to the same month in 2019.
Merkel’s position comes the day after a meeting between the chancellor and the leaders of the “Fridays for Future” movement, in particular with its leader, the young Swede Greta Thunberg, in the German capital.
“Angela Merkel approved our criticism of the agreement with Mercosur, and she does not intend to sign it,” said Luisa Neubauer, an important figure in the movement in Germany, who took part in the meeting.
The text was initially supported by Germany and its powerful export industry, particularly the automotive industry, which saw it as a window of opportunity.
The German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) reacted to the Chancellor’s statements, advocating an agreement “that could provide the urgently needed boost to the economy, during the current crisis,” related to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
But ecological concerns, widely shared by the German public, are gaining ground in the country, where thousands of young activists are regularly protesting.
This has been evidenced by the latest polls commissioned by German television, which shows tremendous growth of the pro-environment Greens (Die Grüne) political party, rising to 17 percent of projected votes, which would make it the country’s second-largest force, behind only Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which also grew significantly during the pandemic.
Source: infobae
For the full picture, see our Mercosur EU Trade Deal: Complete Guide.