“Planned EU Trade Deal with MERCOSUR threatens climate, environmental protection and human rights” – 26 June 2020

...In just a few days’ time, the Presidency of the Council of the European Union will be assumed by Germany. According to its programme, the German government intends to use this occasion to press ahead with the finalisation of the EU trade agreement with the South American Mercosur member state. In a new study, MISEREOR, Greenpeace and CIDSE warn that the agreement could have serious ecological and human rights repercussions. They are calling on the European Union and its member States to abandon its plans to sign the agreement and instead to initiate a fundamental reform of EU trade policy. They describe a deal with the right-wing populist president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, as “turning its back on European values”. The EU’s preferential tariff import quotas from Mercosur would increase by half for beef and chicken, and by as much as a factor of six for bioethanol derived from sugar cane. Halving export duties would also increase Argentina’s soya exports. “The trade agreement would accelerate the expansion of sugar plantations, soya fields and grazing land in South America. These are main drivers of deforestation, the displacement of indigenous peoples and human rights violations,” criticises Pirmin Spiegel, Director General of MISEREOR. The same applies to iron ore and bauxite…“The trade deal is an accelerant which will promote the further destruction of the rainforest,” warns Martin Kaiser, executive director of Greenpeace Germany…According to the study, 70 percent of last year’s Amazon fires in Brazil occurred in regions where livestock is farmed for meat. “If the EU wants to lead on climate action, the EU must align its trade agreements with the Paris Agreement 1.5 goal. The deal with Bolsonaro would not only be a sell-out on the part of the EU in terms of its climate policy,” Kaiser maintains, “it would also mean a complete loss of trust in any promises made by the German chancellor Angela Merkel, right at the beginning of the presidency”...