Protect Amazonia – NO to the EU-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement!
Amazonia is burning to make room for vast industrial soy farms and cattle feedlots. A free trade agreement between the EU and the Mercosur states would incentivize further environmental crimes in South America. Please say NO to free trade with Mercosur!
News and updatesTo: the European Commission and the governments of the Member States
“A free trade agreement with the Mercosur countries would be a threat to people and the environment. Please drop the planned agreement.”In South America, large landowners, industrial agriculture and cellulose companies are ruthlessly deforesting huge swathes of land to make way for new cattle feedlots and vast soy, sugar cane and eucalyptus plantations.
The Amazon rainforest, the Cerrado savannah and the Pantanal in Brazil are burning, as are the dry forests of the Chaco in Paraguay and the forests along the Paraná River in Argentina. Brazil has even opened up protected areas and the recognized territories of indigenous peoples.
Nevertheless, the European Commission is pushing for a free trade and association agreement with the countries of the South American Mercosur alliance. 93 percent of the tariffs for Mercosur exports to the EU are to to be eliminated, benefiting above all agricultural products such as beef, sugar, ethanol and genetically modified soy.
According to the European Commission, the agreement promote further economic growth and protect the rainforests and human rights. But with regard to the latter, there is little more than statements of intent without effective regulations to enforce them.
A large part of the European public is against the agreement. Members of the business community, the European Parliament and governments of the EU member states have all spoken out against the deal.
In the face of all this resistance, the European Commission is using a trick to salvage the trade deal: The economic part – i.e. the free trade agreement – is to be approved by the Commission and the Council of Ministers behind closed doors. Only the political part – the association agreement – is to go through the European Parliament and the parliaments and governments of the 26 EU member states.
Please sign our petition and speak out against this potentially disastrous free trade agreement!
Brazil's government was particularly reckless in its agricultural and environmental policies under the previous president, Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro has been indicted for genocide against the country's indigenous people at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. We support the indictment in our petition "Prosecute Brazilian President Bolsonaro for genocide!", which has been signed by more than 228,000 people from all over the world.
On October 7, 2020, the European Parliament passed an amendment stating that the planned EU agreement with the four South American Mercosur countries cannot be ratified as it stands.
The EU parliamentarians' demands include making the Paris climate agreement as well as the Convention on Biological Diversity essential components of the free trade agreement. It also called for the agreement to be environmentally friendly and to respect the rights of indigenous peoples affected by deforestation, land grabbing and structural violence.
Further information:
Shorthand: The Companies Behind the Burning of the Amazon
Joint letter to end European complicity in fires in the Brazilian Amazon
To: the European Commission and the governments of the Member States
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The EU is seeking a trade agreement with the Mercosur countries that aims to facilitate exports to Europe, in particular of beef, chicken, sugar and ethanol. This is will lead to an intensification of agriculture with negative impacts on nature and the rural population.
We see the following dangers in such an agreement:
– Higher beef quotas will lead to an increase in production in South America, to an expansion of feedlots and thus to the clearing of forests and savannas. At the same time, it would increase pressure on European farmers to intensify their production at the expense of animal welfare.
– Intensified agriculture in South America is often associated with land rights conflicts and human rights violations, including slave labor. The widespread use of agricultural toxins such as glyphosate endangers the health of many people.
– Regulations pertaining to non-tariff trade barriers endanger European environmental standards, consumer and workers’ rights. The precautionary principle enshrined in the EU is coming under pressure and democratic principles are being betrayed.
By negotiating behind closed doors, the European Commission seems to be pursuing the same strategy as with the TTIP and CETA agreements, which prompted millions to protest. The EU does not seem to have drawn any conclusions from these protests and, with the Mercosur agreement, is pursuing an equally damaging trade policy.
We call on you to scrap the planned agreement for the benefit of the people and environment on both sides of the Atlantic.
Yours faithfully,
The EU Commission plans to ‘provisionally’ apply the controversial free trade agreement with the South American Mercosur countries. In doing so, it is disregarding the European Parliament’s decision to have the agreement reviewed by the European Court of Justice beforehand. More than 200 organizations are protesting this move in a letter to the EU Commission.
On March 15, a coalition of more than 450 civil society organizations from both sides of the Atlantic held a press conference showing why the EU-Mercosur trade agreement is a bad deal for people, workers, animals, and the environment.
Today the NGO Rainforest Rescue presents 380,000 signatures against a free trade agreement between the EU and Mercosur countries before the European Parliament's Petitions Committee.
For the past eight years, Rainforest Rescue has been working with Peruvian NGOs to protect the Amazon rainforest. The Peruvian Environment Ministry has now fined cocoa plantation operator Tamshi SAC the equivalent of 30 million euros for illegal deforestation. The company has been ordered to stop all activities and replant the cleared rainforest.
For the past twenty years, the EU has been working on a free trade agreement with South America's Mercosur states. However, faced with the burning Amazon rainforest, the European Parliament has rejected the agreement in its present form. Rainforest Rescue is calling on the EU to rule out free trade with Brazil and its neighboring countries once and for all.
A free trade agreement between the EU and the countries of the South American Mercosur alliance is a threat to humans, nature and the climate. But it’s not too late to stop it, and keep beef, GM soy and ethanol from the Amazon rainforest out of Europe.
Fires are ravaging the Amazon rainforest as never before, and the situation is especially grave in Brazil. Most of the fires were set to make room for yet more cattle feedlots and industrial soybean farms. Brazilian President Bolsonaro has been emboldening the corporate arsonists.