Desenvolvimento sustentável no acordo UE-MERCOSUL: avanços e desafios para o Brasil

Abstract

For more than two decades, the European Union and the Southern Common Market have been negotiating a commercial treaty with the aim of creating the largest free trade zone in the world. Considering the worsening of climate change, the European bloc has promoted the insertion of measures aimed at sustainability, strategically included in the Trade and Sustainable Development Chapter present in the aforementioned agreement. The chapter encourages overcoming the dilemma between environmental preservation and economic progress. However, in light of this effort, several legal and institutional questions emerge: what will be the impacts of sustainability regulations, stipulated in the agreement between the European Union and MERCOSUR, on the Brazilian commercial and environmental panorama? In this context, this research aims to understand the imminent challenges that Brazil will face in aligning itself with the sustainable standards outlined in the treaty, as well as identifying the potential advances that such an instrument can provide to the Brazilian State, both in terms of effective environmental protection and economic development. To this end, in the three chapters of this work, specific objectives are explored, respecting the following order: i) exposing the evolution of negotiations between the blocs, with emphasis on the next steps that will pave the way towards the future of the agreement; ii) elucidate the propagation of environmental guidelines in international trade instruments, with emphasis on the aforementioned Trade and Sustainable Development Chapter of the treaty proposal in question; and iii) analyze whether the treaty, in its current formulation, is capable of stimulating sustainable development policies in Brazil while promoting economic growth. The methodology used is qualitative in nature with documentary bibliographic research procedures, through the study of books, scientific articles and governmental and non-governmental statistics. As a result of this study, it is expected that Brazil will show progress in the conservation of natural resources to reduce the resistance of European countries that demand environmental sanctions. Regarding potential advances, the treaty's sustainability provisions can boost national development, promoting new environmental standards, generating green jobs, improving quality of life and restoring Brazil's image as a partner committed to environmental preservation.