Mercosur in the CFSP at 30: Exploring Contestation to the EU-Mercosur Association Agreement

After two decades of intermittent negotiations, the European Union and Mercosur signed an Association Agreement in 2019. This is one of the most ambitious agreements ever negotiated by both the EU and Mercosur, combining a strong political commitment to multilateralism and the rejection of protectionism through the creation of the largest free trade area in the world. If approved, it will replace the 1995 Interregional Framework Cooperation Agreement, making it a milestone for the EU’s CFSP and Mercosur at a time when both celebrate their 30th anniversary. Despite the celebratory tone adopted by both institutions’ official channels, contestation on both sides of the Atlantic is questioning the deal, putting at risk its ratification. The phenomenon is not new as large EU trade deals, such as CETA or TTIP, have also been contested. Similarly, most contestation to the EU-Mercosur Association Agreement is related to the perceived environmental impact of its trade dimension, especially in Brazil as the country’s environmental policies are understood as insufficient by many Brazilians and Europeans alike. This concern has eventually led the European Parliament to pass, at the end of 2020, a non-binding resolution opposing the ratification of the deal as it stands. The contestation to the EU-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement risks jeopardising the Association Agreement as a whole, compromising the EU’s capacity to act. The contestation to this agreement finds some roots on a demand for stronger norms to protect the Amazon rain forest and its indigenous peoples. Despite the claims of both the EU and the Brazilian government that the association agreement will help fighting deforestation in the Amazon biome, the newly created norms have not yet found enough social recognition. This means that despite formal validation by the respective executive bodies, both societies find that the norms created by the deal are not sufficient to guarantee environmental protection. This contestation becomes particularly intriguing because such argumentation is often presented by entities and citizens who are otherwise supportive of the EU, indicating that contestation against certain EU policies does not only come out of Euroscepticism. In this case, contestation derives from a perceived insufficiency of intermediary norms, which are needed to support the implementation of the Paris Agreement, a more fundamental norm to achieve environmental sustainability. Such demand for stricter supervision by environmentalists clashes with the perception by the Brazilian government which is more concerned with the capacity the agreement will give to the EU to interfere with its sovereignty, a fundamental and non-negotiable norm in the country. Jair Bolsonaro’s government has been stressing that the country’s stance is based on “Common But Differentiated Responsibility” principle in climate governance, a key norm that has been guiding Brazil. Taking the above-mentioned aspects as background, this paper will explore the different levels of contestation to the environmental dimension of the EUMercosur Association Agreement. Particular attention will be paid to the different arguments regarding the existing and proposed norms. This work aims at contributing to understanding the impact of the debate on environmental norms on the EU’s CFSP.