The President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, stated, this Thursday (18), that he called the Prime Minister of Italy, Georgia Meloni, to unlock the European Union-Mercosur agreement. According to Lula, she said that she is suffering internal political embarrassment and asked for a period of a few days to a month to sign the agreement. The statements took place during the president’s conversation with journalists at Palácio do Planalto, in Brasília.
“In the conversation with Prime Minister Meloni, she explained to me that she is not against the agreement, she is just experiencing a certain political embarrassment on behalf of Italian farmers, but that she is sure that she is capable of convincing them to accept the agreement”, stated Lula.
And he continued: “And she then asked me that if I had the patience of a week, 10 days, at most a month, Italy would be part of the agreement.”
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Lula said that representatives of the European Union had assured him that the agreement would be signed this year, on December 20. On the Mercosur side, everything would already be resolved, even with the terms being more favorable to the Europeans.
The PT member stated that he always knew that France was against it and that he was surprised by Italy’s position two days ago. He repeated that the Europeans lose nothing with this agreement and that he will take Meloni’s claim to the other Mercosur heads of state.
According to him, there is nothing that can be done if the text is not ready to be signed, but that it is necessary to wait until Saturday because “hope is the last thing to die”.
Faced with a change of scenery in relation to the signing of the European Union-Mercosur agreement, Lula raised his tone on the topic on Thursday. He stated that, if the agreement is not signed now, “Brazil will not make any more agreements” while he is president.
“It’s important to remember that at this Mercosur meeting, which was supposed to be on December 2nd, I changed it to December 20th because the European Union asked, because it would only be able to approve the agreement on the 19th. Now I know that they won’t be able to approve it. It’s difficult, because Italy and France don’t want to do it due to internal political problems”, said the president during a ministerial meeting on Wednesday.
Still, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, considers that the signing of the agreement with Mercosur is of “crucial economic, diplomatic and geopolitical importance” and that the “right time” has come to conclude it, sources revealed to BroadcastGrupo Estado’s real-time news system.
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This Thursday, however, the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, stated that the agreement between the European Union (EU) and Mercosur cannot be signed and demanded an “emergency brake” for the pact, in comments to journalists upon arriving at the European Council this Thursday.
The French leader, who had already said that he would be against the agreement, declared that he wants to postpone the signing of the possible document between the parties.
“The European Commission made a proposal, Parliament improved it and enhanced Mercosur’s safeguard measures, but we are looking for reciprocity and mirroring clauses in the trade agreement with Mercosur and we are not ready to continue with the agreement,” he said.
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