BRUSSELS: The leadership of the European Union congratulated Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on his presidential election win Monday and expressed hopes of closer cooperation on trade and climate change.
A trade deal signed between Brussels and the Mercosur bloc – Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay – in 2019 has never been ratified, in part because of concerns about environmental policy.
Brazil’s outgoing leader, defeated right-winger Jair Bolsonaro, allowed the de-forestation of the Amazon basin to increase by 75 percent compared to the previous decade, denting EU support for a deal.
Europe’s farmers are also concerned about competition from cheap Brazilian imports, but on Monday the head of the European Commission, which is the EU executive and trade negotiator, expressed optimism.
“I look forward to working with you to address pressing global challenges, from food security to trade and climate change,” Ursula von der Leyen told Lula, in a congratulatory tweet.
Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, which represents the governments of EU member states, said Brazilian voters had chosen a change from the recent past.
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“The EU is committed to cooperate on global challenges: peace and stability, prosperity, climate change. And we’ll work with the whole region,” Michel tweeted.
Arriving at an EU meeting, Sweden’s trade minister Johan Forssell said he was more “positive now than before” that the Mercosur free trade agreement would be implemented.
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