Strengthening European Union relations with Latin America is strategic for Europe, and strengthened EU-Brazil ties could be the key, writes Antoni Comín i Oliveres.
Antoni Comín i Oliveres is a non-attached member of the European Parliament.
The governments of the EU are concerned because of President Lula’s approach to the narrative of China regarding the war in Ukraine and his important nuances regarding the EU’s position on this violation of international law with global effects.
Nevertheless, perhaps we do not realise the rapprochement between China and Brazil, which affects pressing issues such as the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, also has to do with the intensification of commercial relations.
During his last state trip to China in April, Lula signed more than 20 bilateral agreements to strengthen trade, investment and infrastructure development cooperation between Brazil and the Asian giant.
For some time, China has been quickly gaining positions as the leading trading partner of Latin America and, in particular, Brazil. China has been Brazil’s main trading partner since 2009, and trade between the two countries has multiplied twenty-fold in twenty years: from $7,200 million in 2003 to $150,400 million in 2022.
All these years, and way back before, the negotiations of the Mercosur Trade Agreement were not advancing and are still pending today.
During the visit, China offered Brazil an ambitious investment package, including in innovative sectors such as the electric vehicle, to increase the country’s industrial base, which is one of Lula’s main goals to overcome an economic structure excessively based on the export of commodities.
The Brazil-China Business Council reports that Brazil is currently China’s main recipient of foreign direct investment.
In light of this situation, the European paralysis is disturbing.
The EU and Mercosur reached a political agreement for an EU-Mercosur FTA in 2019, but ratification by all the EU Member States is still pending. While Bolsonaro was in power, it was understandable that the ratification of the Treaty was put on hold, given his aggressive policies in the environmental field.
However, Lula’s return entails Brazil’s recommitment to global environmental and climate challenges, which removes any excuse not to ratify the EU-Mercosur agreement urgently.
For Europe, strengthening the relations with Latin America is strategic.
First, a rapprochement between both continents is key for international politics to evolve in the direction that the EU advocates.
Nowadays, Europe dreams of an international system presided over by respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter and international law, but we know well enough that the UN does not have the authority to enforce any of this on its own.
For this reason, the success of such a paradigm inevitably depends on the alliance between the regions of the planet that favour multilateralism organised around the UN, liberal democracy and human rights, and an open economy framed within a world trade system that respects social rights and the environment.
Latin America and Europe share these goals. This is why their alliance is strategic at a global scale.
The EU is also interested in deepening its commercial and political ties with countries like Brazil. It is related to what we could call the “French look”.
European autonomy concerning the US is and has been a French obsession. Since the end of World War II, France has been wary that transatlantic relations become relations of subordination of Europe to the US.
However, Europe needs to preserve these transatlantic relations if it does not want to weaken its geopolitical position.
The best way to do that without dragging the Old Continent into excessive dependence on the US is to rethink these relations within a triangular paradigm.
A US-Latin America-EU transatlantic triangle will allow Europe and Latin America to maintain and strengthen ties with the US without being overly conditioned by its leadership and interests.
The EU-Latin America bilateral axis can help compensate, when necessary, the decisive leverage of the US in this transatlantic triangle.
Thus, it is difficult to understand that the European country that does the most to preserve and deepen the EU’s strategic autonomy concerning the US, France, is the first to – in the name of defending the interests of its farmers – put obstacles in the way of ratification of the trade agreement with Mercosur by the EU.
This is a strong contradiction. If we want Brazil not to approach conflicts like the one in Ukraine with the Chinese narrative, and if, at the same time, we want the EU to have balanced transatlantic relations that avoid excessive dependence on the US, intensifying commercial and political ties with the main Latin American country is key.
Now that our interlocutor is Lula, we should not waste the opportunity to advance in this direction.