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France and Ireland declare opposition to trade deal over Amazon fires G7 leaders to hold emergency talks over Amazon wildfires crisis
(about 1 hour later)
France and Ireland have said they will oppose an EU trade deal with South American countries unless Brazil takes action to stop the burning of the Amazon. Leaders of the world’s major democracies are due to hold emergency talks this weekend on the wildfires engulfing the Amazon, as international efforts to force Brazil to change its deforestation policies gathered momentum.
On the eve of a meeting of the G7 nations in Biarritz, an Élysée source said Emmanuel Macron thought Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, “lied” to him at the G20 meeting in Osaka in June about his climate commitments and therefore France would oppose the Mercosur treaty. As heads of state and government were due to arrive at the G7 in Biarritz on Saturday, France and Ireland threatened to block the Mercosur free-trade agreement between the EU and South American nations if the government of Jair Bolsonaro does not stop the deforestation of the Amazon, which experts say has fuelled the fires. Other EU members were under pressure to walk away from the Mercosur (Southern Common Market) deal, which is already unpopular among European farmers.
“The decisions and comments of Brazil show that President Bolsonaro has decided not to respect his commitments on the climate or biodiversity,” a French official told AFP. The Irish taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, who was first to call the Mercosur deal into question on Friday, said Bolsonaro’s attempt to blame the fires on environmental groups was “Orwellian”.
The Mercosur (Southern Common Market) treaty with four Latin American countries – Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay – was signed in June after two decades of negotiation but has not yet been ratified. The Finnish government, which currently chairs the EU, called on member states to consider more trade restrictions. The country’s finance minister, Mika Lintila, said he “condemns the destruction of the Amazon and calls for Finland and the EU to urgently look into the possibility of banning Brazilian beef imports”.
Earlier on Friday, Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said his government would oppose Mercosur’s ratification.
“There is no way that Ireland will vote for the EU-Mercosur free trade agreement if Brazil does not honour its environmental commitments,” Varadkar said.
Provisionally agreed in June 2019 after some 20 years of negotiating, the EU has signed a trade agreement with the Mercosur nations - Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The agreement will cover a combined population of 780 million, making it one of the largest ever trading bloc arrangements by size.Provisionally agreed in June 2019 after some 20 years of negotiating, the EU has signed a trade agreement with the Mercosur nations - Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The agreement will cover a combined population of 780 million, making it one of the largest ever trading bloc arrangements by size.
EU's exports to the Mercosur countries totalled €45bn in 2018. Goods travelling in the other direction amounted to €42.6bn in 2018. The EU is the biggest foreign investor in the region - €381bn in 2017. Trade in services between the two regions was valued at €34bn in 2017.EU's exports to the Mercosur countries totalled €45bn in 2018. Goods travelling in the other direction amounted to €42.6bn in 2018. The EU is the biggest foreign investor in the region - €381bn in 2017. Trade in services between the two regions was valued at €34bn in 2017.
Critics of the deal have said that it has taken too long to sign, and that with the climate emergency, a deal that will facilitate the easier shipping of animal products across hemispheres conflicts with the EU's stated aim to reduce greenhouse emissions.Critics of the deal have said that it has taken too long to sign, and that with the climate emergency, a deal that will facilitate the easier shipping of animal products across hemispheres conflicts with the EU's stated aim to reduce greenhouse emissions.
As a result of the deal, EU companies will save €4bn worth of duties per year. Since 2014, EU trade agreements with 15 countries have entered into force, notably with Canada and Japan.As a result of the deal, EU companies will save €4bn worth of duties per year. Since 2014, EU trade agreements with 15 countries have entered into force, notably with Canada and Japan.
Ireland would need other EU members to help form a blocking minority to stop the deal being passed, but it could be the most feasible form of international leverage on President Jair Bolsonaro to replace protections he has removed and curb the destruction of the rainforest and the lives of indigenous people of the Amazon. Boris Johnson, who will be attending the G7 summit for the first time as prime minister, has said he was “deeply concerned” by the Amazon conflagration, but was under pressure from Jeremy Corbyn to support punitive measures against Bolsonaro, who the Labour leader said “has allowed and indeed encouraged these fires to take place”.
Macron has declared the Amazonian fires an international crisis, adding that the issue would be at the top of the agenda at the G7 summit this weekend in the French seaside town of Biarritz. However, Bolsonaro is likely to be defended by Donald Trump, who regards the far-right Brazilian leader as a close regional ally and has ignored the science underlying the climate crisis. The public backlash also escalated on Friday. In Brazil, protests against the government’s environmental policies were planned in 40 cities on Friday, and there were demonstrations outside Brazilian embassies and consulates in several European capitals.
“This country made a Herculean effort to reduce deforestation in the Amazon and now we are seeing everything being taken apart,” tweeted Brazil’s former environment minster Marina Silva. “Brazil had stopped being a villain and it is now going back to being a pariah. We must stop this insanity,” he added.
France accused Bolsonaro of lying to its president, Emmanuel Macron, about his commitments on combating the climate emergency, and so the country would no longer support the Mercosur deal with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. The deal has taken two decades to negotiate but has yet to be ratified.
Macron said the wildfires constituted an international crisis and vowed to push the issue to the top of the agenda at the G7 summit, which begins on Saturday night in Biarritz. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, supported the decision.
“The extent of the fires in the Amazon area is shocking and threatening, not only for Brazil and the other affected countries, but also for the whole world,” Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told journalists in Berlin on Friday. “When the G7 comes together this weekend, then the chancellor is convinced that this acute emergency in the Amazon rainforest belongs on the agenda.”
Bolsonaro said on Friday that he may send the military to battle the massive blazes. “That’s the plan,” he said. He has painted the barrage of criticism as part of a foreign conspiracy that might eventually be used to justify a foreign “intervention” in the Amazon. “This happens all over the world, it’s not just in Brazil,” he said of the fires.
But in seeking to bringing broad international pressure to bear on Brazil, the French president is likely to face resistance from Donald Trump, a staunch ally of the Brazilian far-right leader Trump also has a long history of climate change denial himself.
The US has insisted the first working session of the summit focus on boosting economic growth. “We think the global economy is one of the core features of the G7 and really should stay the focus,” a senior administration official said. “The president’s message will be pro-jobs, pro-growth and currency stability.”
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The German government has not so far mentioned the fate of Mercosur, but it has – along with Norway – halted donations to the Brazilian government’s Amazon fund. The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson has said he is “deeply concerned” by the fires in the Amazon, but the government has so far not commented on the fate of Mercosur, which is only due to be ratified in two years, long after Brexit is due. Another US official claimed: “We have a winning record on the environment, but we don’t think that environmental protection needs to necessarily cost economic growth or energy security and dominance.”
Varadkar described as “Orwellian” Bolsonaro’s efforts to blame environmental groups for the wildfires consuming the Amazon. US emissions fell 14% from 2005 to 2017, but began to rise sharply again in 2018. Trump, who in the past described the climate emergency as a “Chinese hoax”, has refused to sign a joint G7 policy statement with his fellow leaders for the past two summits, and the French are not expecting him to support a common position this year.
He added: “There is no way we can tell Irish and European farmers to use fewer pesticides, less fertiliser, embrace biodiversity and plant more of their land and expect them to do it, if we do not make trade deals contingent on decent environmental, labour and product standards.” Macron is also expected to clash with Trump over policy on Iran, and the US decision last year to walk out of a multilateral agreement on containing the Iranian nuclear programme. The French president is hoping to use the Biarritz summit to defuse dangerous tensions in the Persian Gulf, driven by the US attempt to strangle the Iranian economy, and Iranian reprisals aimed at harassing oil tankers passing through the strait of Hormuz.
Macron met Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, in Paris on the eve of the Biarritz summit in an effort to find common ground to restart dialogue between Washington and Tehran. Zarif told a French press agency that he thought Macron’s suggestions went “in the right direction” but did not give details. Trump has said that he is willing to restart talks but has refused so far as to return to the nuclear agreement or relax the US-led oil embargo on Iran.
There are also likely to be tough talks between Macron and Trump on trade, and particularly over a 3% French tax on digital services, which the White House alleges disproportionately hurts US companies. Trump has threatened to retaliate with a tariff on French wine.
“President Trump certainly wants to see a global solution to that issue, which he’ll keep pushing, but he is also not going to back down in the face of countries like France going after our industry,” a senior administration official said.
Trump’s position will be bolstered by arrival of Johnson, who the president will meet in Biarritz for the first time as prime minister, and who he sees as another natural ally on the hard right.
Johnson has, however, stuck so far to the common European position in support of the Iran nuclear deal. The Biarritz summit will be the first major test of where the new prime minister seeks to position his government in the transatlantic divide between the US and Europe as Brexit looms.
In part to dilute the impact of policy division within the G7, Macron has invited other world leaders, from South Africa, Egypt and the Sahel, as well as India, Australia, Chile and Spain to the summit, to talk about global inequalities, climate change and biodiversity.
Likely flashpoints at the G7
Amazon and climate crisis
France, with emphatic Canadian and German support, is putting the ecological crisis in the Amazon at the top of the G7 agenda, but Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro is likely to count on Donald Trump for support. They are allies on the far-right, and fellow climate crisis deniers.
Iran
Emmanuel Macron has taken the lead in trying to halt the drift towards conflict in the Persian Gulf, dispatching aides to Tehran and meeting the Iranian foreign minister in Paris. Macron will try to persuade Trump to relax the US campaign of maximum economic pressure in a way that the US president will be able to claim is his own diplomatic breakthrough. An obstacle may be the presence in Biarritz of Trump’s ultra-hawk national security adviser, John Bolton.
Trade
Donald Trump will arrive in Biarritz furious at China, and looking for support in presenting a united front to Beijing. But he has his own battles to fight with Europe, and has threatened to impose tariffs on French wine in retaliation for a French tax on digital services which affects US tech giants. US tariffs on Airbus and vehicles are also hanging over transatlantic relations.
Amazon rainforestAmazon rainforest
G7
IrelandIreland
Leo VaradkarLeo Varadkar
Jair Bolsonaro
International tradeInternational trade
DeforestationDeforestation
Brazil
Conservation
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