On July 3, the meeting of the foreign ministers of the countries that make up Mercosur concluded. “Having more balanced relations” is what Argentina has requested, in a context of tensions due to the hardening of environmental demands from Brussels. However, the measures requested by the Europeans show that the fight against climate change is not the same throughout the world, and that technological inequalities and the economic development of each region can determine environmental and trade agreements.
The Mercosur foreign ministers opened a meeting on Monday with Argentina’s call to “update” the trade agreement reached with the European Union and have more balanced relations between the two blocs.
“Neoprotectionism”
The current negotiations with the European Union in environmental terms expose the technological inequalities between the two blocs. To understand them, Óscar Fernández-Guillén, an economist and political scientist at the Universidad de Los Andes, proposes the concept of “neoprotectionism.”
“Neoprotectionism is even more unequal because the European Union requires Mercosur members to comply with a kind of green commitment that, due to the levels of development, may be more difficult to achieve. The Mercosur countries are countries in development, while hehe countries of the European Union, for the most part, are developed countries that have the necessary technology to undertake production processes that can reduce any polluting element. In the case of our countries, they require previous investments that could lead to this reduction. And that is precisely where we talk about issues of inequality in development, because we are not prepared right now to assume it. And this makes the difference in this inter-regionalism of the North-South type, between Mercosur and the European Union ”, he details.
“Reality says otherwise”
However, Germany imports coal from Colombia, a fossil energy that accelerates global warming, and France seeks in Chile to extract lithium, an industry that destroys ecosystems… “It paradoxical of this case is that, by a part, the Union European exercises this guy of measures neoprotectionists, but by the other, the reality says all it contrary. Yeah we look the data of the year 2022 in terms of the exchanges commercial, the main games that HE they exported from he mercosur until the Union European were in first place Petroleum and hydrocarbons. Then, in second place, he coffee, in third place, the soy. AND then are headings as corn, he iron and the meat. There is a bit of contradicted to purpose of a agreement commercial as he that HE go on arguing,” he explainsOscar Fernandez-Guillen.
Until now, there are no regulations to exercise international climate justice or the mandatory adoption of measures to combat climate change, except for trade sanctions such as those that the European Union intends to impose in its agreement with Mercosur.
