EU-Mercosur agreement unlikely to be ratified as Amazon burns: Donald Tusk

The President of the European Council, Donald Tusk has said that it is unlikely that the EU-Mercosur agreement will be ratified while the Amazon forests burn. He said in a tweet that although EU stands by the agreement but it was hard to imagine the bloc ratifying its trade pact with South America's Mercosur grouping as long as Brazil fails to curb the fires ravaging the Amazon rainforest.

The tweet read, "The EU stands by the EU-Mercosur agreement but harmonious ratification is hard to imagine as long as the Brazilian government allows for the destruction of the green lungs of Planet Earth."

The EU stands by the EU-Mercosur agreement but a harmonious ratification is hard to imagine as long as the Brazilian government allows for the destruction of the green lungs of Planet Earth.

— Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) August 24, 2019

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar and French President Emmanuel Macron said earlier they would vote against a trade deal between the European Union and South American trade bloc Mercosur unless Brazil takes action to protect the rainforest.

The German Chancellor Angela Merkel also called the wildfires across the Amazon rainforest an "acute emergency" that belongs on the agenda of this weekend's G7 summit in Biarritz.