Within the rush to finalise the controversial EU-Mercosur commerce deal earlier than the European elections in June this yr, its promoters seem prepared to shake arms with Argentina’s new far-right president, Javier Milei — a recognized local weather change denier. The urgent query now’s, will the EU promote out the atmosphere and human rights for the sake of commerce?
Whereas an settlement in precept was reached in 2019, the EU stopped its ratification underneath former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro as a result of record-breaking ranges of deforestation and forest fires within the Amazon, coupled with a surge in human rights violations within the nation.
Again then, France, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands have been amongst a number of governments and parliaments to precise their reluctance to ratify a cope with the far-right chief.
Issues over the deal’s dangers for environmental safety pushed the European Fee to publish an environmental annex to the settlement — an train that finally proved to be mere greenwashing, providing solely beauty and unenforceable changes.
Because the EU-Mercosur negotiations are as soon as once more dashing up, the grim actuality stays: deforestation and human rights abuses persist in Brazil. Whereas President Lula has proven a robust dedication to higher defending the Brazilian Amazon, deforestation continues to be on the rise in less-protected areas of the Mercosur area.
Destruction of the Cerrado, the world’s most numerous savanna, surged by 141 % in September 2023, compared to the earlier yr. And the identical goes for the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland, now at imminent danger of collapse due to agricultural enlargement and forest fires.
Not solely do deforestation points persist, however so do threats to native communities’ well being and biodiversity. Brazil continues to be the world’s high pesticide person, with the approval of 42 new agrochemicals underneath Lula’s second presidency, together with 24 that aren’t authorised to be used within the European Union.
A latest examine exposes the prevalence of slave labour within the Brazilian cattle ranching business and its commerce hyperlinks with the EU provide chain, elevating reliable considerations that European international locations are importing merchandise tainted by human rights abuses.
Milei and the artwork of European hypocrisy
The EU’s continued pursuit of the EU-Mercosur settlement amid these environmental and human rights considerations is manifestly hypocritical. The rise of the far-right in Argentina, with president Milei on the helm, ought to have spelt the top of this outdated deal. But, the European Fee and Germany at the moment are urging that the negotiations be finalised.
Throughout his marketing campaign, Milei repeatedly denied the local weather disaster and known as for the privatisation of widespread items. One month solely after his election, he launched a legislative reform bundle that included the modification and abrogation of quite a few environmental safety norms on forests, glaciers, fire-fighting, and fishing.
Different measures such because the liberalisation of land possession for international traders and the creation of a carbon credit score market will profit polluting fossil-fuel industries, agribusiness and mining. It’ll enhance the strain on Argentinian uncooked supplies, specifically lithium, wanted for the so-called ‘Inexperienced transition’.
Native communities and Indigenous Peoples have been preventing for years in opposition to the extractive business and its environmental impacts, however the suitable to protest of Argentinian residents is now additionally being curtailed by Milei who moreover began a repressive and anti-democratic offensive.
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In gentle of the continued environmental devastation and Argentina’s new political agenda, will the international locations who refused to ratify EU-Mercosur with Bolsonaro nonetheless comply with shake arms with climate-denier Milei?
The explanations to cease the EU-Mercosur deal have not modified since 2019. This settlement stays intrinsically poisonous for the planet and the folks. It perpetuates an unsustainable and neo-colonial system, based mostly on the plunder of nature for the revenue of some.
Because the world grapples with pressing challenges — the local weather emergency, rising inequalities, the surge in far-right populism — the EU should forge new commerce relations, based mostly on solidarity, justice, safety of human and labour rights, and respect for the planet’s boundaries. A imaginative and prescient that’s undoubtedly not suitable with the EU-Mercosur deal.
EU commerce insurance policies ought to align with the bloc’s local weather targets, and environmental and human rights requirements, not undermine them.