By Richard Mann
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The European Union and Mercosur closed the trade agreement which began to be negotiated in 1999. The official announcement is due to be made this Friday, June 28th, in Brussels, the Belgian capital and one of the European Parliament’s headquarters.
Earlier this Friday afternoon, the Ministry of Agriculture celebrated the signing of the agreement on a social network as “a historical moment, waited for 20 years”.
Agriculture Minister Teresa Cristina and Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo traveled to Brussels, where negotiations have intensified in recent days.
The free trade agreement may be one of the largest ever signed. The negotiations involved the 28 EU countries and the four Mercosur nations (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay). The two blocks together gather over 770 million consumers.
Before signing the agreement:
President Jair Bolsonaro and French president Emmanuel Macron had a 20-minute meeting in Osaka, Japan, during the G20 summit. Bolsonaro assured Macron that Brazil would remain in the Paris Climate Agreement and said he hoped France would support the European Union’s free trade agreement with Mercosur.
On Thursday, June 27th, Macron had said that he would not sign a trade agreement with Brazil if Bolsonaro withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement, threatening to put a brake on the EU-Mercosur trade talks.