Paris (EFE) obstacles – and that there are “threats” between blocks that should be strategic partners.
During his speech at the closing of the Summit for a new global financial pact, an initiative promoted by French President Emmanuel Macron himself, Lula stressed: “I have no other request than that, to have an agreement with the European Union.”
Specifically, the Brazilian president has said that with the “additional burden” imposed by some European partners, there can be no agreement.
“I ask for an answer, how can you have a strategic association with threats that are made against strategic partners?”, he said, without targeting specific names, but before the watchful eye of two great European heavyweights: Macron and the German chancellor, Olaf Schölz.
Fight poverty and climate change
Lula has come to this thorny issue after having recalled the enormous global inequalities and the challenges faced by countries like his, which combine the fight against poverty and climate change (central axes of this Paris summit).
In this sense, he recalled that when his government and that of his successor, Dilma Rousseff, ended, the UN had recognized that Brazil had left the poverty map, but when he returned this year to the Brazilian Head of State, thirteen years later , there are 33 million hungry people again.
He also recalled the setbacks caused by the wave of “protectionism” in recent years and that on a “democratic level” his country is “much worse off because of the fascist” who ruled before him (referring to his predecessor, the far-right Jair Bolsonaro).
Among the great challenges, he has ensured that the issue of climate change is not “secondary”, as demonstrated by his commitment “of honour” towards zero deforestation in the Amazon by 2030.
“It is necessary to restore the degraded land, then it will also be necessary to deal with international agreements, trade agreements,” he said.
Lula asks Macron about the evolution of the EU-Mercosur agreement
Later, Lula discussed with Macron, during a lunch that lasted for an hour and a half, the evolution of the negotiations of the EU-Mercosur agreement, now at a standstill, reported the Brazilian Presidency.
The Brazilian sources did not provide details of the conversation between the two leaders.
Lula considers that the conditions that the Europeans are currently asking for from the bloc of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay “are unacceptable.”
In his opinion, these conditions penalize Latin Americans, especially those related to climate agreements, since “no country has respected the Copenhagen or Paris agreements” and “a little more flexibility is needed” to achieve a good agreement for all. .
France is one of the nations that has historically put the most obstacles in the negotiations, which have been going on for more than two decades and which have been seeing a new momentum since Lula’s re-election.
The EU-Mercosur agreement will be one of the issues that will be the focus of the summit of leaders of the European Union and CELAC on July 17 and 18 in Brussels, and which will be held under Spain’s recently inaugurated rotating presidency of the EU, which is very Advocate for an agreement.