This Tuesday the president of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, spoke in advance of the summit of presidents of Mercosur and indicated that he will not accept the “impositions” of the European Union to finalize a free trade agreement. In addition, he accused rich countries of not complying with any of the environmental agreements of the last decades.
“We want to discuss the agreement, but we don’t want impositions”remarked the Brazilian president from Puerto Iguazú, Misiones, during the Conversation with the President program that is broadcast in the Brazilian public media.
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Specifically, Lula referred to an additional letter (side-letter) sent by the European Union in March, in which it is stated, as he explained, that there would be threats of sanctions in the event that European environmental compliance standards are not met.
“It is an agreement between colleagues, strategic partners. Nothing to place the sword in the other’s head. We are going to sit down and settle our differences,” added the leftist president who today received the pro tempore presidency of Mercosur.
Along the same lines, in relation to the economic bloc’s objective of signing a negotiation agreement with the EU, which has been under discussion for more than two decades, he added: “They sent us a letter imposing some conditions. It is unacceptableone cannot imagine that a business partner of yours could impose conditions.”
More specifically, Mercosur is trying to finalize a free trade agreement with the EU after reaching a first agreement at the beginning of 2019, at which time a general understanding was signed between both blocs.
In any case, said agreement was not ratified and negotiations continue. In this context, the Brazilian president affirmed that from his government he is preparing a opposite to present in Brussels during the summit from July 17 to 18 that will bring together Europeans with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac).
“I want to have an exemplary Mercosur presidency. I want to dedicate myself so that, in these six months, we can even close the agreement with the European Union and start thinking about other things. We want to discuss the deal, but we don’t want it to be forced on us“, he stated.
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Likewise, the leader of the Workers’ Party (PT) accused the rich countries of failing to comply with global environmental commitments at the same time that they present demands to developing nations that aim to obtain compensation to preserve their natural resources.
“The rich countries did not fulfill any agreementneither the Kyoto Protocol, nor the COP20 in Copenhagen, did not comply with the decisions of Rio 92 and they will not comply with the Paris Agreement”, remarked the left-wing president.
In this way, before joining the summit of heads of state of the South American bloc, he concluded: “No one in the world has the moral authority to discuss the issue of clean energy with us”.
AS./fl
