EU-Mercosur agreement: The largest free trade project in the world threatens to fail

It is as if the EU also wanted to pulverize the last doubts about the fire disaster in the Amazon rainforest. At the weekend, the Brussels Commission has activated the so-called Copernicus emergency services at the request of Germany. The European "Sentinel" satellites have now targeted the Amazon region - not only in Brazil, but also in parts of Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay. As expected, the pictures are disturbing, bright orange marks gigantic areas on which rainforest was still standing.

The Crisis Service of the Copernicus Program is typically triggered by forest fires or flood disasters in Europe. The rationale for deployment over South America: The events are "widely described as an international crisis because of the importance of the Amazon rainforest for the global climate".

Of course, even without the satellite imagery of the EU, it was already well documented that such a crisis exists. But they could increase the pressure - not just on Brazil's right-wing populist President Jair Bolsonaro, who downplayed the fires first, calling them the work of environmentalists, but also on the EU leadership itself. The voices that stop the newly completed Trade agreements with South America's Mercosur states are becoming louder.

Also Luxembourg wants to "pull the rip cord"

Following France and Ireland, Luxembourg is now openly threatening to veto the ratification of the treaty. "You have to help France and Ireland, now pull the ripcord," said Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn the SPIEGEL. A trade agreement would make sense only if one had "at least in large part similar values". Climate and environmental protection but Bolsonaro obviously do not care. "So," says Asselborn, "one of the main conditions for the contract is no longer met." The Luxembourg Government has decided to "put the procedure on hold".

This refers to the ratification of the trade agreement. It was only in June that the European Commission reached an agreement with the Mercosur states Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay - after more than two decades of negotiations. It is a so-called mixed agreement: one part falls under the sole responsibility of the EU Commission, another has to be approved by all EU states and even by regional parliaments. How difficult that can be even with countries without authoritarian rulers, was only the end of 2016 in the drama of the Ceta Treaty with Canada, which brought the Belgian Wallonia to the brink of failure.

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In the EU capital, there was one feeling above all so far with regard to the Mercosur Agreement: pride. The treaty - which would be the world's largest of its kind - was further proof that the EU is taking advantage of the moment: it defends the multilateral world trade order that US President Donald Trump is attempting to destroy. The focus was on the economic aspects of the agreement so far. Here, too, it offers only advantages for European companies, they said.

With the forest fires and the ongoing clearing of the rainforest, this attitude changes now. Of course, the agreement was not only with Brazil, but with all Mercosur countries. However, it does not look good if just the polluter Bolsonaro was just the pampered negotiating partner of the EU. Martin Häusling, agricultural policy spokesman for the Greens in the European Parliament, calls on Europe and the Federal Government to stop the free trade agreement: "You can not do business with an arsonist."

Federal government wants to stick to the agreement

Even the EU Commission is now cautious criticism. "The ongoing forest fires in the Amazon are very worrying," the agency said. It was more than justified that the issue had been addressed by the Heads of State and Government at the G7 summit.

The Federal Government, however, does not want to know anything about a stop to the trade agreement. "A non-closure is not the appropriate answer to what's happening in Brazil," a government spokesman said last Friday. He pointed out that the agreement specifically contains a chapter on sustainability with ambitious rules on climate protection.

Although the Mercosur states agree in the agreement with the EU to "effectively implement the Paris Agreement on Climate Change". This, according to a common argument in Brussels, would at least have some leverage against Brazil. However, the Green MEP Sven Giegold considers this an illusion: "The sustainability chapter is technically ineffective, because none of it is enforceable."

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Victor Moriyama / Greenpeace Brazil HANDOUT / EPA-EFE / REX

If you doubt it, you just have to look at what's happening in the Amazon region right now. "To say that the Mercosur agreement would contribute to civilization is grotesque given the burning forest and deforestation dynamics," said Giegold. Bolsonaro's behavior shows that the environmental passages in the Mercosur agreement "do not interest him at all". Luxembourg Foreign Minister Asselborn says that adhering to the Mercosur agreement is no longer negotiable: "With countries that break the Paris climate agreement, you can not conclude trade agreements - it is as simple as that."

Even from the public pressure is growing. Several online petitions call for the end of the agreement, some - such as "WeMove.eu" or "Campact" - now come to six-digit signature numbers. The German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas is after all verbally ambitious. "We must not idly watch how devastating fires destroy the green lung of the world," said the SPD politician on Tuesday at the Ambassadors' Conference in the Foreign Office. As he imagines the deeds, he also said: He had offered his Brazilian counterpart on the phone the support of Germany in the fight against the fires.

However, it only took a few hours for Brazil's government not only to reject the offer of aid from Europe, but to mock it. The Europeans should use the money better to reforest their own forests, said Bolsonaro's chief of cabinet Onyx Lorenzoni. And French President Macron should take care of the problems at home and in the French "colonies". Shortly thereafter Bolsonaro made the assumption of about 20 million dollars offered by the G7 states - anyway a rather symbolic sum - dependent on a condition: Macron must "take back his offenses against my person". Bolsonaro also explained what he was really talking about: Macron had dared to blame him for lied over his climate protection intentions.

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