BRASILIA (dpa-AFX) – Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is threatening to withdraw his country from the planned Mercosur agreement with the EU. If the free trade agreement, which has been negotiated since 1999, is not approved by the EU countries in time before the planned signing on Saturday, Brazil will no longer support it, said the left-wing head of state of Latin America’s largest economy.
“I have already warned them: If we don’t do it now, Brazil will not make a deal as long as I am president,” Lula said, as reported by the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo. Brazil waited 26 years for the agreement.
The agreement is intended to boost trade between the EU and the Mercosur countries Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. However, the French government had recently again called for improvements and a postponement./aso/DP/zb