00:00Ambassador Pedro Miguel da Costa e Silva, thank you for being with us on Euronews. Good to see you.
00:05Thank you for having me, Maret.
00:07So, let me start with this ban that the EU has introduced very recently on the imports of Brazilian meat
00:14products, other food products as well,
00:17citing lack of compliance with EU food standards, particularly the use of antibiotics in animals.
00:25What is your view on this? Do you think that this ban is justified?
00:30Well, I think that the first thing I need to clarify is that this is not something related to the
00:37quality of Brazilian products, nor consumer safety.
00:42This is about a regulatory issue, which is the fight against antimicrobial resistance, and Brazil is involved in that fight
00:53also, like the EU and many countries across the world.
00:56The EU decided to have a regulation, implement a regulation that indicates that you cannot import anything that was treated
01:05with these products that, for example, promote growth.
01:11We presented the documents and the EU considered that the documents and the guarantees were insufficient, and that's why we
01:18were excluded from the list.
01:19And since then, we have been providing information, providing guarantees.
01:24There was an audit, so we hope soon to be back in the list.
01:30And how confident are you that you will be able to provide those guarantees, that this situation can be reversed?
01:36And if not, what could Brazil then do? Would it take action? Is there any countermeasures on the table?
01:44I think that we believe in dialogue. We believe in cooperation. We are one of the biggest providers of agri
01:53-food products in the world.
01:55We are one of the biggest producers and exporters of animal protein. We are very competitive. We have a lot
02:02of quality.
02:03So we are very confident in what we send to the European market.
02:07So, to answer your question, I'm very confident and hopeful that we will be back on the list soon, on
02:15the first phase for some of the products, I think poultry and honey.
02:20And I hope that soon after the rest of the products.
02:24Do you fear that this episode could have somehow emboldened those people who have been against the EU Mercosur deal,
02:34which is a trade deal between the EU and Brazil and other Latin American countries,
02:37that it could have encouraged them somehow to see that there might be a way to prevent these kind of
02:44imports from coming into the European market?
02:47You have touched on a very sensitive point, which, because I do fear that this episode and this issue is
02:57going to be distorted.
02:59And that's why I sent the message. People are going to say, oh, Brazil does not comply with our regulations.
03:04Brazil, Brazilian products do not have the same quality. They are a risk.
03:09And none of this is true, because if you look objectively of what we're talking about, in no way has
03:16the EU said that our products have a problem in terms of quality.
03:22It's just an issue of they believe we haven't provided sufficient guarantees that we will be able to segregate the
03:30production that we send here,
03:32because we still use two of these antibiotics.
03:37Other countries also use it. Other countries, big producers also use it.
03:43And antibiotics are used even here in Europe, other antibiotics.
03:47The issue is that here there is a ban, and it's the only place in the world where there is
03:52a ban.
03:54And we respect that, and we are going to comply.
03:57But I want to focus on what you asked me.
04:00The important thing is to make sure that this doesn't get distorted,
04:04that people who are against the agreement and people who are against Brazil being here and competing with us
04:10will distort this and transform this into, again, another part of this disinformation campaign against Brazil,
04:18that we do not have quality, that we do not comply, and all this, I think, does a lot of
04:24harm to the EU-Brazil relation.
04:28And it also creates a problem in terms of the EU-Mercosur agreement.
04:32And if you cannot come to resolution through these talks and the ban remains in place,
04:40do you fear it could somehow undermine or jeopardize the broader EU-Mercosur deal in any way?
04:48I hope that we can quickly solve this, because if you look at the products that are involved,
04:54these were sensitive products that were the object of quotas.
04:58I was one of the negotiators of the agreement, and I know how much we paid in terms of, if
05:04you want,
05:05for these quotas, in terms of the negotiation.
05:08You exchange different things.
05:10You do not negotiate only agriculture.
05:12You negotiate all the sectors.
05:15And these were very sensitive issues.
05:18We had a lot of interest.
05:20So if we stop exporting bovine meat, poultry, honey, we are losing.
05:28There is a reversal of expectations of what we thought the agreement was going to be for us.
05:33So there is frustration on the part of the Brazilian producers,
05:37and that's why we are working very hard to make sure that this situation is reversed.
05:43And I don't want to not respond to what you asked me about countermeasures or whatever.
05:49That's not how we operate.
05:51We prefer dialogue.
05:53We prefer cooperation.
05:55But if we need to go down another road, we will.
06:00But this is not the time to speculate about that, not to anticipate that.
06:05The Mercosur deal was obviously meant to open a new chapter in broader EU-Brazil and EU-Latin America relations,
06:12too.
06:12I must ask you, Ambassador, because next year we do have crucial elections in Europe, Poland, France, Spain, Italy, for
06:19example.
06:20And this could change the political landscape.
06:22Do you fear that that political direction could somehow endanger or put it at risk the broader relationship between the
06:31EU and its partners, such as Brazil?
06:33Well, I think there are elections going on everywhere all the time.
06:38I think that we need to look at the relations between Brazil and the EU, or if you prefer, between
06:44Mercosur and the EU, in the long term.
06:47We can't just think about the short term.
06:50We have to have a strategic vision.
06:52If we want to create new value chains, if we want to create strategic partnerships, we have to look in
06:59the long run.
07:00So that's the kind of thought, of reflection that I would invite people to make.
07:06I'm not going to speculate about elections in other countries.
07:10I am confident that the agreement being in provisional application, that it will generate positive results and it will convince
07:20people of what is real and what is not real about this agreement.
07:24Last time we spoke, Ambassador, Canada was attending a meeting of the European political community for the first time.
07:31Mark Carney, the Canadian leader, is in Strasbourg next week for a sitting of the European Parliament.
07:36And it seems that the EU is really deepening ties with Canada, also been a target of Trump tariffs, as
07:43has Brazil.
07:44And do you now see a way forward in the relationship where Brazil really becomes a strategic geopolitical partner for
07:54Europe, even more so than it is today, for example?
07:57Well, I have been working hard for the last four years to strengthen our strategic partnership that already exists.
08:04I hope that next year we will have a leader's meeting, a summit, and that we will beef up, since
08:12we're talking a lot about agriculture, we will beef up our strategic partnership with the EU.
08:17That already includes issues such as the digital economy, human rights, energy, that we will develop sustainable, that we will
08:25branch out and we will make this strategic partnership even stronger.
08:31And I want to send another message, which is, I think the EU and Brazil have a lot of commonality
08:38in issues in the international agenda.
08:41We're very committed, both of us, to the strengthening of international institutions, to the strengthening of multilateral rules.
08:50We work together on a series of issues.
08:53So I think it's just an issue of increasing the intensity of what we're already doing.
08:58And do you feel that just on that, increasing the intensity, do you feel that maybe there has been a
09:05lack of momentum in recent months since the signing of the Mercosur deal?
09:09Do you think that needs to be driven more?
09:11I think so, but there is a very simple explanation.
09:15I think that before we concluded the deal and before the agreement went into force, the Mercosur agreement kind of
09:25sucked out the air.
09:27Everybody only paid attention to the Mercosur deal.
09:30Now it's time to talk about Brazil and the EU.
09:34We have done Mercosur.
09:36There are still things to do about Mercosur.
09:38But I think we need to start paying more attention to the bilateral relationship where there are a lot of
09:42opportunities and things we can do together that we cannot do in the agreement that are separate.
09:48OK, Ambassador, thank you so much for speaking to us.
09:51Thank you very much for inviting me.
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