Increasing ties with Brazil is positive. The aim of fostering ties between the EU and Brazil is obviously good news, it almost goes without saying. History and language unite them both and political relations are positive. Economic and trade relations are expanding and the role of the two parties at the G8 and G20 (and their subsequent responsibilities in global governance) is quite obvious. Brazil is one of the major emerging world powers, together with China and India. The EU-Brazil summit in the Brazilian capital last week confirmed and consolidated this situation, as well as future perspectives. One aspect, however, is a cause for concern: confirmation of the aim to use Mercosur as a means of developing a huge free trade zone. Experience suggests that this kind of negotiation between two groups that are not the same and have different objectives is likely to drag on and achieve minimal results or none at all.
A rhetorical and unrealistic project. Brazil is the EU's tenth largest trading partner. The world crisis provoked a slowdown between 2008 and 2009 in both trade and investment but prospects are again looking good. The Brazilian authorities welcomed renewed EU/Mercosur trade negotiations (countries from this group are currently chairing the negotiations) and intend to use them as a means of obtaining free trade in agriculture. The Brazilian president wants these negotiations to be concluded before the end of his mandate (next December) and expressed hope that by then he would have convinced his “great friend” Nicolas Sarkozy (see the previous edition of EUROPE). Declarations of principle have been accompanied by the usual dose of rhetoric: this would be the biggest free trade zone in the history of the world, bringing together 750 million people etc.
Apart from the agricultural goals and rhetoric, several symptoms indicate that in reality the benefits for this zone are fairly limited. This body has never really functioned as a compact whole and transforming it into an interlocutor with Europe, as if it had competencies and importance similar to Europe's, is unrealistic. Brazil is behaving at an international level as if it were an autonomous power and it is quite rightly considered as such, whilst Europe is becoming increasingly aware that it only has political, economic and strategic clout if it acts as a whole and if it strengthens the Community institutions. At last week's bilateral summit in Brasilia, the interlocutors of President Lula da Silva were Mr Van Rompuy and Mr Barroso. A Brazilian pressure group of business leaders that took a position last Friday in favour of launching trade negotiations mentioned Mercosur in passing, but only really alluded to bilateral trade with Brazil and the almost unlimited investment opportunities existing there. It appears obvious that at a bilateral level trade and economic aspects can be efficiently discussed and negotiated between the EU and Brazil, without neglecting the concerns and fears regarding agricultural and environmental matters already mentioned at the European Parliament and the Council of the EU.
An example to avoid. I believe that the equivocation partly responsible for making the so-called Union for the Mediterranean ineffective (a comprehensive free trade agreement incorporating Morocco and the Balkans) should not be repeated with Brazil, Argentina and other Mercosur countries. The fact is, only the EU possesses common institutions with genuine powers and binding rules on member states for managing trade policy in common. Nothing similar exists between Mediterranean non-EU countries or those in Mercosur, and nothing suggests that these countries are moving towards setting up supranational institutions authorised to act on behalf of all the others. If Algeria (which is not interested in free trade with Europe) or Argentina (which has specific national interests) take autonomous trade measures, which European Commission interlocutor would discus the matter?
Unlimited prospects. Deepening and enlarging relations between the EU and Brazil offers practically unlimited prospects such as, for example, the already ongoing cooperation involving Amazonian surveillance and protection technology made available for tropical forests in Africa. Numerous other examples exist. Similar cooperation, as well as specific trade arrangements, is both possible and desirable between the EU and Argentina. I believe that this is the path to follow. Relaunching a comprehensive free trade agreement between the EU and Mercosur would simply be another relaunch of old, uncompleted negotiations and would be a waste of time without real prospects.
(F.R./transl.fl)