During an event organised by EUBrasil on Tuesday (9/12), Ambassador Vera Machado, Head of the Brazilian Mission to the European Union, said that she believes that the re-elected president’s new economic team will seriously start addressing the Free Trade Agreement with the EU as soon as January.
“Brazil will assume the rotating presidency of Mercosur and will be in a position to advance the agenda, hopefully moving it from our memories to become a reality”, said Ambassador Vera Machado, during the opening speech.
The Ambassador hosted the 2nd edition of Friends of EUBrasil, and during the event the study “Enhancing economic and financial ties between Brazil and the European Union” was presented. The study has been conducted by EUBrasil with 27 important and strategic Brazilian and European companies, and it concluded that regulatory barriers, among other issues, are the main obstacle in the development of trade relations between the two regions.
The president of EUBrasil, Luigi Gambardella, believes that the study will provide strong support for the discussions on an agreement between Brazil and EU. “The challenge of the technical barriers indicates that Brazil and EU should work together on cooperation agreements in order to try and solve the problems that are beyond the tariffs”, said Gambardella.
“There is an open window of opportunity for the Brazilian government, despite the advance in the EU-US negotiations and, more recently, EU-China”, explained Prof Alfredo Valladão, president of EUBrasil Advisory Board.
“We must act fast because this window of opportunity will close, the modernization of production processes is moving so quickly with the new technologies that, if we do not get involved, we will lose time and it will be very difficult to advance again if we are left behind”, said Valladão.
Event
The 2nd edition of the Friends of EUBrasil event was attended by more than 100 guests, including academics, CEOs, high officials of private and public Brazilian and European institutions and MEPs, such as Paulo Rangel, president of European Parliament’s Delegation for relations with Brazil and keynote speaker of the evening, as well as Viviane Reding, Fernando Ruas, Viorica Dancila and Matthijs van Miltenburg.
“If we really believe in the market economy, a strong social policy, the Constitutional State and Human Rights, we should not be afraid of opening our borders and reduce our barriers, as everything will work according to the established rules and respecting these rules, for competition and fair trade” said Paulo Rangel MEP.
“We are here to network and that means sharing common interests and be able to accomplish objectives together”, stressed Viviane Reding MEP.
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