Mauro Vieira announces European Union agreement with Mercosur for December

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mauro Vieira, said that the agreement between the European Union and Mercosur will be signed on December 20th during the Mercosur Summit to be held in Rio de Janeiro.

The guarantee was given by the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who met with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva this Wednesday (5), in Belém (PA).

“We studied and discussed the current situation, and the president of the commission reaffirmed her certainty, her belief, her firm hope that the agreement will be signed at the end of the year”, says the chancellor.

Lula had already announced the closing of the agreement during his recent visit to Asian countries. “It is important to remember that after 22 years, we are going to make the European Union and Mercosur agreement in December. It was something that had been blocked for a long time, we then decided to unlock it in the presidency of Brazil and Mercosur, we are going to make this agreement. And we are also making an agreement for Indonesia with Mercosur, for Malaysia with Mercosur, for Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) with Mercosur, in other words, our business is to do business”, he said.

Read more: Lula and Ursula von der Leyen see progress in the Mercosur-European Union agreement

The Ministry of Development, Industry, Commerce and Services explains that the agreement will integrate two of the largest economic blocs in the world.

Together, Mercosur and the EU bring together around 718 million people and a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of approximately US$22 trillion.

When examined by the volume of trade between the two blocs, it is at the same time the largest commercial agreement negotiated by Mercosur and one of the largest among those agreed by the European Union with commercial partners.

“Measured by the populations covered together with the size of the economies of the two blocs, the Partnership Agreement between Mercosur and the European Union is one of the largest bilateral free trade agreements in the world—in an international context of increasing protectionism and commercial unilateralism, this result is a sign in favor of international trade as a factor for economic growth”, explains the ministry.

For Brazil, the Agreement has strategic value in several ways. The European Union is Brazil’s second main trading partner, with trade in 2023 of approximately US$92 billion.

The agreement should reinforce the diversification of Brazil’s commercial partnerships, an asset of a strategic nature for the country, in addition to promoting the modernization of the Brazilian industrial park with integration into the European Union’s production chains.

“It is expected, in the same way, that the agreement will further boost investment flows, which should reinforce the EU’s current position as the holder of almost half of the stock of direct foreign investment in Brazil”, says the ministry.