CNI reacts to Macron’s speech and defends EU-Mercosur agreement

The National Confederation of Industry, CNI, released this Thursday, 28th, a note in reaction to the speech by the president of France, Emmanuel Macron (in the photo, with Lula).

After an event with representatives of the industrial sector in São Paulo, Macron gave a speech saying that the terms of the current agreement are “terrible“.

“Let’s leave this agreement behind, let’s build a new one, illuminated by new ideas”, said Macron.

Frenchman Macron and President Lula are mainly responsible for burying the agreement, which advanced during Michel Temer’s government and was signed in the first year of Jair Bolsonaro’s government.

“The National Confederation of Industry (CNI) reiterates its defense of the conclusion of the Association Agreement between Mercosur and the European Union as it considers it a fundamental contribution to the climate, sustainability and trade agendas. For CNI, the agreement reinforces global climate objectives and commitments“says the CNI note.

For the CNI, the text is being improved in the rounds of negotiations starting in 2023, and it would not make sense to start everything from scratch.

“The industry sees this agreement as a modern and responsible institutional framework for conducting economic-commercial relations in the 21st century, taking into account the importance of environmental and social issues alongside economic objectives”says the president of the CNI, Ricardo Alban, in a note.

“Like any other trade agreement, this is not a static agreement. In other words, this negotiation is part of a cyclical process, which allows for updates whenever necessary. In this sense, the established provisions serve as a starting point for expanding dialogue between the two blocks and improving standards. In fact, a specific review provision is part of the text, which allows for continuous improvements to the originally established commitments”, says Alban.

Among the commitments that can be included in the current agreement, the CNI cites the promotion of trade in sustainable goods, female empowerment and domestic climate-related measures.

“If the agreement is not concluded, none of the commitments of this modern sustainable development agenda will be transformed into an international legal commitment. The losers are Mercosur, the European Union and France, who will not be able to count on a long-term, beneficial cooperation agenda for both”, says Alban.