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Mexico (AFP) – The European Union hopes to sign the free trade agreement with the Mercosur countries (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay) in July, Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans said Monday in Mexico.
“Hopefully we can do it before the next summit with Latin America to be held on July 17 and 18 in Brussels,” Timmermans told AFP on the last day of a tour of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico.
“I would love it if we could do this before the Swedish presidency ends,” insisted the vice-president of the European Commission in charge of international climate negotiations.
European leaders “have an urgent duty to ensure that the EU/Mercosur agreement reaches its goal,” he added, mentioning Foreign Minister Olaf Scholz, currently in Brazil, as well as European Council President Charles Michel and French President , Emmanuel Macron, of whom he said could visit Latin America.
“Our goal is to finally come to a quick conclusion,” Foreign Minister Scholz said during an earlier stopover in Buenos Aires.
The agreement, concluded in June 2019 after twenty years of negotiations, but without parliamentary approval and with strong criticism from both sides.
“I think there are new arguments on the table,” continued Timmermans, who met in Brazil with the new Minister of the Environment, Marina Silva, an emblematic figure in the fight against global warming.
The commitment of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva against deforestation is “authentic”, according to the European leader: “He would not have appointed Marina Silva Minister of the Environment if it were not so”.
Lula told Scholz on Monday that “we will close that agreement, if everything goes well, who knows, by the end of this semester”, adding that Brazil hopes to introduce changes, although it promised “openness” in the negotiations.
