By Anthony Boadle, Reuters agency.- Brazilian authorities said that the new legislation enacted by the European Union to prohibit the import of products linked to the deforestation is complicating negotiations for a trade agreement with the South American bloc of the Mercosur.
EU lawmakers passed regulations in April requiring producers of soy, beef, coffee, timber and other commodities to prove their supply chain is free of deforestation.
“We must not allow this legislation to disrupt the trade agreement between Mercosur and the 27 countries of the European Union,” said Brazil’s vice president, Geraldo Alckminat a conference organized by the soybean processing group Abiove.
While the responsibility for complying with the new rules will fall on EU importers, the Brazilian Secretary of Foreign Trade, Tatiana Prazeres, said that in trade talks the commercial impact for exporters in increased costs and bureaucracy cannot be ignored. “You cannot offer with one hand what you take away with the other,” he said at the conference.
Prazeres added, however, that the EU-Mercosur negotiations are an opportunity to influence the enforcement of deforestation rules and find ways to compensate with trade concessions that maintain a balance in market access.
“They really don’t like the deforestation directive, but we are trying to reassure them that the implementation takes into account some of their concerns,” said a European diplomat.
Both Prazeres and the Secretary of Economy and Finance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mauricio Lyriosaid they hope to announce the long-awaited conclusion of trade negotiations with the EU at a Mercosur summit on December 7.
They reiterated the Brazilian Government’s position that the EU deforestation law is protectionist, arbitrary and incompatible with the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Source: Ambito
