From the Street Up: Founding a New Politics in Spain

https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/from-the-street-up-founding-a-new-politics-in-spain/

Spain is a country with an elevated awareness of environmental issues and its youth has mobilised en masse to save the planet. However, Green political parties enjoy little electoral support. Esteban Hernández discussed the contradictions in Spain with Green politician and activist Florent Marcellesi and University of Zaragoza sociologist Cristina Monge. With a political space for ecology opening up for contestation, whether or not a green hegemony can be built will depend on political ecology’s ability to push for real transformation and to offer a convincing narrative that transcends class lines.

Esteban Hernández: According to studies by the Centre for Sociological Research of Spanish people’s main concerns, the environment is not a chief worry. It has risen up the list, moving from 0.7 to 3.2 per cent in a year,1 but it’s still far from being a real priority. Why is that?

Florent Marcellesi: We’re at the start of a new historical cycle. We mustn’t only look at the evolution of survey figures from one month to the next but also the long term, starting with Spain’s transition to democracy in the 1970s, which left ecology in a secondary position compared to France or Germany since the dictatorial regime did not permit Green (or any other independent) parties. The difficulties continued with the rise of the anti-austerity 15-M and Indignados street movements in 2011 in the wake of the economic crisis, which also don’t see the environment as a priority.

But now we are living through a period of profound evolution, the birth of a green hegemony. The 15-M Movement began in 2011 but had been a long time coming, and the same is true of ecology, which, through new movements like Juventud por el clima (Youth for climate), is laying the cultural foundations for a green hegemony. Europe also has great influence and the groundswell taking place in the EU has reached Spain. What is yet to happen is for this cultural hegemony to transform into political hegemony.

Cristina Monge: 15-M doesn’t influence the “what” so much as the “how”. It massively and categorically marks the beginning of a new model of mobilisation that first rejects and then transcends classical forms of organisation such as trade unions or political parties. 15-M goes beyond traditional structures and generates a wave with a discourse that is perhaps disorganised but still very powerful. Youth for climate takes on these characteristics, as do the 8M (International Women’s Day) mass mobilisations. It’s spontaneous, there’s no political positioning, but it is possible for the movement to evolve into a meta-narrative.

Florent Marcellesi: This is why I say that we are in a moment of hegemonic construction, that there’s a groundswell that perhaps doesn’t have a clear theoretical corpus, but it will come. This moment, as a real inflection point, is completely unpredictable. Even if ecology in Spain has been relegated to the macro level, and especially since the Catalan bid for independence since 2012 has taken on so much weight in the Spanish community, it has been very present in recent years in municipalism. Cities like Barcelona or Madrid have been pioneers on ecological issues at the European level. The question with this “climate 15-M” is how to unite the micro and the macro levels. That is the challenge for the coming years.


The problem that we face isn’t denialism, but climate hypocrisy – the use of climate change so that nothing changes.

The green vote in Spain is split between the centre-left PSOE, left-wing populist Podemos, green-left Más País, and animal rights party PACMA. To what extent do left-wing and centre-left parties complicate the existence of a Green party in Spain?

Cristina Monge: I’m not sure that there will ever be a strong Green party in Spain, similar to the ones in Germany or France, under current conditions, but there is definitely a political space. The problem is already recognised, including amongst conservatives, and the battle is going to be around what to do about it. Everyone knows that there will be a green transition but there are different discourses about how to tackle it, some more neoliberal, others more social democratic or communist. It’s here that there will be an ideological fight, and a political space that is distinctly green will be important for pushing the debate in one direction or another.

Florent Marcellesi: We Greens are an instrument, so the ideological absorption of our ideas by all parties is welcome if that’s how we achieve change. But there is still a long way to go – we’ve seen that in COP25. The problem that we face isn’t denialism, but climate hypocrisy – the use of climate change so that nothing changes. We need clear voices that remind us that change must be profound, not cosmetic. Second, we must accept that an economic system based on growth cannot work, and need to think about justice from the perspective of post-growth, beyond the dominant economic models.

In Spain, the government has created a vice presidency of ecological transition, but at the same time it tells us that we should keep on growing. That’s why we need a Green party, even if it’s not like those in other European countries given the history and situation in Spain. A sufficiently strong Green party would push others to follow through and not fall into climate hypocrisy, as well as raising structural questions that get to the root of the problem.

The conversation on the green transition always seems to come back to who will foot the bill. In Spain, even solutions like the Green New Deal haven’t managed to frame environmentalism as a solution.

Cristina Monge : We’re very much in an initial stage. Proposals like the Green New Deal are only really understood by those who dedicate themselves to this area. To gain wider acceptance, it’s important to ground these ideas with examples. We see this for instance in the mining communities of Teruel, León, and Asturias that have been dependent on coal and need to generate a different economic model. It’s in these places that we are going to see what the Green New Deal really is and what a just transition means. The move from coal to renewables will need investment, there will be workers who need retraining. When this happens and it becomes clear that at the end of the road jobs are created, the fear will disappear. The green pact isn’t about renewables, which are already here, but something different.


Political ecology in Spain has to bring together two different electorates if it wants to be hegemonic.

Florent Marcellesi : In the collective imaginary, ecology is perceived as the enemy of employment. We’ve got to turn this around so that ecology is seen as the friend of employment and the future. It’s a response to unemployment and to the pension problem, and it will bring security and stability. It has to be seen as something appealing.

Cristina Monge : Let me add that when we say ecology should be appealing, that it ought to be sexy and cool, we have to be very careful because it could become something associated with quality, health, bicycles, and clothes made from recycled plastics aimed at the medium-to-high end of the market. That can be attractive, but it doesn’t have transformational capability and generates social inequality.

Florent Marcellesi: I agree. Political ecology in Spain has to bring together two different electorates if it wants to be hegemonic: the Greens’ classic voter base, the educated urban classes with a medium-to-high income level (who have clearly been reached with the message of political ecology), and the popular classes who have different needs. With the latter, it should be inclusive and insist that the fight will be fair or it won’t happen. If the Greens in Germany can create a hegemony and overcome the Social Democrats, it will be because they have become a party that is popular beyond the middle classes.

This nuance is important, not because environmentalism can be considered fashionable among urban middle-to-upper classes, but because the Spanish right is underlining this aspect as a way to gain followers.

Cristina Monge : This is a difficult time for green politics. In the post-election surveys following the May 2019 elections in Madrid, we saw that the Madrid Central low-emission zone had been a decisive factor in former mayor Manuela Carmena losing votes in neighbourhoods on the outskirts where she had enjoyed strong support before.2 Madrid Central became a discourse similar to that of the gilets jaunes; while the rich could drive around the centre with their electric cars, those on the outskirts lacked adequate public transport and were forced to use older cars. These debates underline how, if the ecological transition is not done in an equitable way, its appeal will be limited to the middle and upper classes of Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and Seville. Ultimately, this is what has happened to Más País, which has suffered as a result of this contradiction.3

Florent Marcellesi: The denialism of the far-right Vox party isn’t the main problem. Other right-wing movements, like in France, have incorporated environmentalism into their platform. But in Spain, as we see in Madrid, the Right has lost the battle because it will have to apply Madrid Central anyway.4 The Right has lost the battle for public opinion when it comes to environmentalism.

Cristina Monge With the Right, yes, but with the far-right I disagree with you there. So long as the transition isn’t just, the far right will have a hunting ground. Whenever taxes on petrol and diesel have been brought up, they have immediately responded asking why those with the least should have to pay. With this obrerismo (workerism) they can gain ground as it enables them to reach a sector of the population by opposing policies that address the climate emergency.

Territorial dynamics are important. In Europe, Green parties are more successful in the north than in the south, and something similar has happened in Spain. What’s more, in Spain there is also a territorial identity element because nationalisms, with the Catalan process, have kept environmentalism low on the political agenda.

Cristina Monge: The pattern within Spain is similar to that in Europe overall. The Basque Country in the north is leading the way with a transition plan that has received millions in investment with both public and private funds. This is related to their economic development but also to their political, social, and business culture. In the south, there is a sense of being less dependent on the environment than in the north. In regions like the Basque Country, the post-industrial transition is still fresh in people’s minds. Since it went well, they see the green transition as an opportunity and not a threat. In Castile and Andalusia, things played out differently, which is why in these regions it’s so important to emphasise the idea of a just transition.


Spain has been a pio­neer in its capacity for mobilisation and institutional presence on issues like feminism, in which Spain and Sweden are leaders.

Florent Marcellesi: The Catalan process has had a negative impact on both the social and ecological agenda. Political ecology should be brave and put the ideas of interdependence and co-dependence at the fore. But beyond this issue, there are two factors that will be important in developing a strong Green party. The government has confirmed that there will be an ecological transition and has a vice presidency for this area as well as a vice presidency for the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. If citizens’ demands are met in this regard, it will be difficult for a strong party to develop. If, on the other hand, the people are disappointed, the space will open up again. This already happened to PSOE when it failed to deliver on its promises, leading to EQUO’s establishment in 2011. The second factor is what is happening on a social level. If youth movements continue to develop and political identity is created beyond what the government does, then we will cement this cultural hegemony.

What can Europe learn from the Spanish experience? Is there something that could prove useful? Perhaps the 15-M?

Cristina Monge: While they’re not the same, 15-M was part of the same cycle as the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, and Nuit debout in France. They gave rise to this new wave of social mobilisation that brought with it Greta Thunberg and created a movement that is in its prime today. This isn’t something limited to Spain, and it has been very influential.

Spain provides various positive examples that demonstrate the importance of a just transition. Not just in the Basque Country, but in other regions too. What’s more, we have to cite experiences like those in Madrid with the subsidised retrofitting of rental housing for energy efficiency.

Florent Marcellesi: Spain has been a pio­neer in its capacity for mobilisation and institutional presence on issues like feminism, in which Spain and Sweden are leaders. The only country in the world that held a mass feminist strike for International Women’s Day 2019 was Spain. If we link this with ecology – and this can be done because the ecofeminist current is gaining traction – then it will have an impact in Europe, which in this respect is looking to Spain. The second important issue is municipalism, given how regions and cities are very relevant in the fight against climate change. Many cities have as much, if not more, weight than states and they will have an extremely important role to play in the future.

NOTES

1. The figure of 3.2 per cent dates from December 2019. See full results.

2. The 2019 Madrid local and city council elections saw Manuela Carmena of the left-wing Más Madrid replaced as mayor by centre-right Partido Popular’s José Luis Martínez-Almeida with the backing of a centre-right coalition. Carmena’s flagship Madrid Central project, which the Right actively campaigned against, sought to reduce air pollution by making the centre off-limits to non-residential cars.

3. The green-left Más País platform was formed by Íñigo Errejón around Más Madrid to contest the November 2019 general election. In some provinces, the party fielded candidates in coalition with the Green party EQUO. It won three seats, two of which with Más País–EQUO. The election saw the governing PSOE party win the most seats while the far-right Vox more than doubled in size to become the country’s third most powerful party.

4. Courts have blocked the right-wing bloc’s efforts to roll back the Madrid Central low-emissions area on grounds of the negative effects even a temporary suspension would have on health and the environment.


This interview is part of our latest edition, “A World Alive: Green Politics in Europe and Beyond”.

We Cannot Entrust Our Dreams to the Ballot Box

Colombian philosopher Omar Felipe Giraldo, a researcher in Mexico, paints a portrait of Latin American political ecology. The decision to safeguard the rights of nature in Ecuador and Bolivia in the early 2000s is often cited as an example elsewhere, but what were the effects? In this interview on eco-social struggle in Latin America, Giraldo highlights the importance of social movements and warns against the illusion of change from above.

Le Comptoir: In what context did Latin American political ecology emerge?

Omar Felipe Giraldo: The main feature of Latin American political ecology is its deep links to social movements: “en defensa de la vida y del territorio”, as we say in Spanish – “in defence of life and land”. With a few exceptions, the development of an abstract theory of political ecology did not precede these movements. Instead, intellectuals and academics have taken them as inspiration to rethink their political and philosophical categories.

To understand the reasons that led certain groups to mobilise, we need to be aware of the offensive of extractivism and the processes of accumulation by dispossession seen across Latin America since the beginning of the millennium. These followed the wave of neoliberal privatisation that began as early as the 1980s.

What exactly is extractivism? What has this extractivist offensive involved in practice?

Extractivism, as its name suggests, refers to the extraction of large quantities of resources and raw materials in order to fuel the accumulation of capital. Specifically, from the 2000s onwards, there has been an increase in investment in mining projects, largely due to the extremely high prices of resources such as gold, coal, platinum, phosphorus, copper, manganese, nickel, and coltan, not to mention the staggering oil prices in the early years of the 21st century. Numerous hydroelectric dams were also built.

Land grabbing is another important phenomenon in the region. To give just one example, the so-called “United Republic of Soybeans”, which straddles Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia, covers an area that increased from 17 million to 46 million hectares between 1990 and 2010. Within this area, 20 million hectares of forest were felled for agriculture between 2000 and 2010. These examples give an idea of the serious tensions convulsing the regions inhabited by indigenous peoples and small farmers. They also show why these groups have played such a fundamental role in Latin America’s socio-ecological struggles.

Mexican sociologist Armando Bartra argues that after the financial crisis of 2008, capital was forced to “come back down to earth” – to rediscover the materiality that is at the source of economic cycles – so as to avoid a new crisis. Has the extractivist offensive you just mentioned intensified in the past decade?

After the financial bubble burst in 2007-2008, speculative capital moved from “fictitious” money to the unbridled exploitation of oil, unconventional hydrocarbons, minerals, and monoculture agriculture and forestry in the countries of the Global South. Here in Chiapas, Mexico, where I live and teach, the area of the state allocated to mineral exploration increased from 3 per cent to 30 per cent between 2008 and 2013. In short, we might say that there was a share of capital that turned away from financial speculation and rediscovered the materiality on which economic cycles depend. It “came back down to earth”, to use the phrase coined by Armando Bartra that you mentioned, and it did so in many “megadiverse” regions where nature is particularly rich and abundant.

Latin America shows that neoliberalism does not mean the withdrawal or absence of the state, but rather a shift in its role from redistribution to repression.

In France, we still live largely with the myth of a protective, regulatory state. What role does the state play in the ecocide wrought by capital in Latin America? Are they trying to control or regulate it?

Almost without exception, the governments of Latin American countries, whether of Right or Left, have promoted these investments. They have allocated land, offered tax incentives, changed institutions and legal frameworks, built infrastructure, preserved low wages and, when necessary, used force – regular police and military, and irregular paramilitary groups (mainly in Mexico, Central America, and Colombia) – to bloodily put down resistance.

They have also pursued a “dark” strategy of co-opting the leaders of social movements and obtaining clientelist loyalties, particularly through the construction of infrastructure in health and education. Latin America shows that neoliberalism does not mean the withdrawal or absence of the state, but rather a shift in its role from redistribution to repression. The state plays an important role in the neoliberal phase of capitalism in that the conditions for capital accumulation depend on an alliance between governments and capital.

How have these policies affected the lives of people and the regions they live in?

The main effect has been land appropriation and forced displacement, typically through the purchase or grabbing of land for the construction of hydroelectric dams. The displaced are forced to migrate to cities, including ones abroad, in search of work. But there are also forms of land appropriation in situ, without physical displacement, in particular when people lose control of their means of livelihood to large corporations. Although the inhabitants continue to live in the same places, they are now often trapped by these mega-projects, condemned to survive amid the spoliation.

These dispossession phenomena sometimes adopt particularly perverse forms, especially when they take place within the framework of “sustainable development” projects such as wind farms, nature-based climate projects or eco-tourism sites. But, one way or another, there is a rupture in the material and symbolic conditions of people’s lives.

In France, there is a tenacious myth that ecology is a luxury for the middle classes, for the rich. On the contrary, the Latin American experience seems to prove the economist Joan Martinez Alier right, with his concept of the “environmentalism of the poor”. Can you explain this idea and tell us what forms resistance takes in Latin America?

The brutality of neoliberal capitalism within the context of the recent extractivist offensive has certainly given strength to the struggles of popular movements to defend life in the face of these death-dealing projects. For these people, to fight for land is not only to fight for places of aesthetic, symbolic or scientific value; it is to fight for their lives and their livelihoods.

In the face of privatisation and monopolisation, resistance groups have regularly proposed the rehabilitation of community spaces and collective forms of regulating social life.

Accumulation through dispossession is an invasion not only of physical space but also of people’s ways of being and living. It is therefore not necessarily an “environmentalist” struggle, as if it were in the essence of these peoples to defend and protect nature, but rather often the only choice for survival. It is important to take into account that, as the hegemony of the neoliberal model gains strength, the crisis in the modern project of domination of nature and peoples becomes more visible. In this context, we are witnessing a reinvention of identities and a re-appropriation of the nature and culture of each people, as the Mexican environmentalist thinker Enrique Leff rightly points out. As for concrete strategies, the repertoire for collective action has numerous possibilities: direct action (such as blockades and confrontations), legal action, the creation of popular assemblies or community police forces, and so on.

Beyond mere resistance, what are the concrete alternatives? You often say that we need to relearn how to live in this world that we have “disinhabited”. What are these other forms of “living” and collective organisation that peoples in the Americas intend to defend and promote?

In the face of privatisation and monopolisation, resistance groups have regularly proposed the rehabilitation of community spaces and collective forms of regulating social life. This takes various forms: solidarity economies via peasant or indigenous organisations, based on principles of reciprocity and redistribution; community currencies and barter; the revitalisation of community assemblies and the creation of village police forces and sometimes militias; and the re-appropriation of previously abandoned vernacular languages, agricultural practices that had fallen into disuse, or local knowledge. There has also been an increase in the exchange of local seeds to escape the monopolies exercised on the seed market by large agribusiness firms. In short, threatened groups are seeking to defend the “commons”, or reinvent it.

All this has led to a renaissance in the thinking and practice of autonomy. Many communities have decided to organise themselves as much as possible on the margins of the state and its structures, focusing instead on directly transforming the social fabric outside established institutions.

The resistance of Latin American peoples has also been manifested in more conceptual ways, notably through the idea of “buen vivir” or “good living”. This found canonical expression in the Cochabamba Declaration and its recognition of the rights of Mother Earth, the Pachamama. Can you outline this idea and its origins?

Buen vivir is a patchwork heuristic concept, the ambition of which is to bring all these struggles together under the same banner. The idea came from various principles held by the indigenous peoples of Latin America, be they Andean, Mesoamerican or Amazonian. If I had to summarise it, I would say that buen vivir is the art of living a full life. For these peoples, this involves the understanding that it is only possible to live well if others live well too. The understanding that the community is not only composed of human beings – that it also includes animals, forests, rivers, mountains, and so on. Within this philosophy, there is no one-size-fits-all model that can be applied in all circumstances. It is, however, essential to have a spirituality that recognises the relationships that unite all the entities of the world. It is also necessary to have a large measure of creativity, allowing humans to find ways of living without harming ecosystems.

I would say that buen vivir is the art of living a full life. This involves the understanding that it is only possible to live well if others live well too.

Is this really a “traditional” idea or does it refer more to a phenomenon of invented tradition and strategic essentialism (peoples claiming that it is in their tradition to respect nature in order to assert their rights at the political level)?

Undeniably, this phenomenon exists – even if it is without common measure to any political project in the classical sense. We should not idealise the situation: these peoples, like all peoples, live with their virtues and their vices. In our age, the after-effects of capitalist “development” can be seen wherever it has taken place. There are no virgin cultures endowed with a “pure” identity, and indeed these population groups are particularly vulnerable and often exhibit the worst sides of modernity. Nevertheless, a difference exists. Activists have drawn inspiration from the wisdom of these peoples, but they have often done so excessively, thus creating the image of a “good green savage”. This must be avoided at all costs. Fictitious narratives have also been created to legitimise utopias that are alien to these peoples and their practices in order to identify an “outside” of modernity that no longer exists, for better or for worse. The practices and concepts of indigenous and rural populations depositaries can offer alternatives to the ecocidal trajectory of capitalist modernity, but they cannot be expected to hand us a neat package containing all the solutions we need.

Several governments, notably in Ecuador and Bolivia, have claimed this idea of buen vivir, to the point of constitutionalising the rights of Mother Earth. What is the real environmental balance sheet of these governments?

Various social movements, often of peasant and indigenous origin, supported the “progressive” governments of Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador. Initially, this helped to bring about changes in these countries’ constitutions. Valuable elements were introduced, for example collective rights (which amplify the rights of the classic citizen-subject), including the right to autonomy and self-determination of peoples, recognition of the multicultural character of the nation, and so on. The new constitutions also made it possible to break with certain anthropocentric conceptions of law. For example, the human right to a healthy environment has been complemented by new rights granted to nature itself, now recognised as a subject in law.

Nevertheless, this constitutional and political reconfiguration quickly showed its limits – and its dark side. In practice, these major principles have almost always remained a dead letter, and they have sometimes even been denied by the governments that initially defended them. Governments have often implemented “neo-extractivist” practices, consisting of nationalising and profiting from oil and mining rents, in order to implement redistributive policies and finance social programmes, without ever calling into question the previous development model and its ecocidal trajectory. At times, the remedy has been worse than the disease, since the financing of such programmes is often based on an intensification of natural resource exploitation. The social movements subsequently distanced themselves from these governments, gradually realising that the state is part of the organisation of international capitalism, from which it is structurally incapable of escaping.

The hope raised by these governments was real, but the hangover that followed was grim. If there is one conclusion to be drawn from the political experiments carried out in Latin America over recent decades, it is that it is impossible to escape from capitalism “from above”, relying on the levers of state power. We cannot wait for alternatives to emerge from state institutions, much less entrust our dreams to the ballot box.

This interview was first published in Le Comptoir.

MAY 2020

https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/we-cannot-entrust-our-dreams-to-the-ballot-box/

The EU-Mercosur Trade Deal Must Be Stopped

In June 2019, nearly two decades of negotiations between the EU and the Latin American Mercosur bloc concluded in the signing of a trade deal. Still to be ratified, the EU-Mercosur agreement has attracted strong criticism from diverse actors, from European farmers to environmentalists and human rights groups. With a focus on Brazil, the Mercosur bloc’s biggest member led by far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, Julia Lagoutte assesses the threats the deal poses to people and planet, and its prospects going forward.

The past two decades have seen a proliferation of free trade deals between the EU and the rest of the world. Twelve trade agreements were agreed between 2000 and 2010, while only 11 were in place before that. The following nine years saw that number double. The latest, signed by both parties in June 2019 but not yet ratified, is with Mercosur, a trade bloc made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

If ratified, the EU-Mercosur trade deal will eliminate tariffs on roughly 90 per cent of Mercosur’s exports to the EU over 10 years – chiefly agricultural products such as beef, poultry, and fruit. In turn, EU companies would pay less tax to export products – mostly machinery, car parts, and dairy products like cheese – to Mercosur. European manufacturers today can pay duties as high as 35 per cent on such products. Both blocs would gain cheaper access to tens of millions of new consumers, and government procurement contracts would be opened up to both sides.

But it is not yet a done deal. Before coming into force, the agreement must be ratified by both the European Parliament and Mercosur, and by each of their member states, in an atmosphere of growing resistance. Campaigners and some politicians have been raising concerns for years about the potential impacts of such a deal on European farmers, as well as on the climate, the environment, and human rights in Latin America. However, the release of the final agreement revealed a deal which would also entrench centuries-old inequality between the two regions.

EU international trade policy has long been criticised for its neoliberal and environmentally destructive bent. While the EU now has more mechanisms at its disposal to protect workers and the environment, this latest agreement is deeply concerning and contradictory to the EU’s stated commitments, as well as being far from socially just or ecologically sustainable. Greens at all levels of government, and civil society more widely, should continue to oppose the deal – and other political groups should join them.


Campaigners and some politicians have been raising concerns for years about the potential impacts of such a deal on European farmers, as well as on the climate, the environment, and human rights in Latin America. However, the release of the final agreement revealed a deal which would also entrench centuries-old inequality between the two regions.

EU trade deals are negotiated by the European Commission, with little input from the European Parliament, which only has a say when it comes to ratification. Trade agreements of this size and scope have huge implications, affecting government and regional policies and economies for decades to come. This agreement follows the general trend of EU free trade deals – centred around economic growth and putting corporate interests before human and environmental wellbeing. Negotiations began in 1999: the content of the agreement, focused on narrow economic objectives with little mention of climate chaos, is of a different era. Its values jar with the recent reawakening of environmental activism worldwide. Only two groups in the European Parliament, the Greens/EFA and the smaller European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL), have challenged this trade model.
Environmental concerns

Since Jair Bolsonaro became president of Brazil in January 2019, the country has veered away from greater environmental protection towards open exploitation of the Amazon rainforest and protected areas such as the tropical Cerrado savanna ecoregion. In June 2019, deforestation was up 88 per cent on the previous year. The Amazon rainforest is now being destroyed at the record-breaking pace of two football pitches an hour.

Rampant forest clearance is already at crisis point in Latin America, yet the trade deal would increase the annual export quotas for land-intensive products such as beef (by 99 000 tonnes), ethanol (by 650 000 tonnes), and poultry (by 180 000 tonnes).

“The more a product is desired by the world market, the greater the misery it brings to the Latin American peoples whose sacrifice creates it.” Uruguayan writer Edouardo Galeano may have been referring to minerals, coffee, and sugar when he wrote this in his 1971 work Open Veins of Latin America, but today it is agricultural products like beef and ethanol that fit the picture.

Beef and ethanol are the biggest drivers of deforestation in the region, with beef production bearing the greatest responsibility: 63 per cent of deforested land in the Brazilian Amazon is used for cattle grazing. The equivalent of up to 500 football pitches of land was cleared in 2018 to feed British meat eaters alone.

The impact on biodiversity is of huge concern, particularly given the contempt Bolsonaro has shown for indigenous land rights, which are key to conservation. Evidence shows that land managed by indigenous communities has the greatest levels of biodiversity in the world (more than “virgin” land with no human presence).


“The more a product is desired by the world market, the greater the misery it brings to the Latin American peoples whose sacrifice creates it.” — Edouardo Galeano

Huge emissions increases are also anticipated. Deforestation produces 25 to 30 per cent of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. Forest fires like those which ravaged the Amazon in 2019 are also expected to escalate, turning biodiverse and air-purifying forest into dead and polluting wasteland. The non-profit GRAIN estimates that the deal would increase the emissions linked to EU-Mercosur trade by 34 per cent. While these would mostly arise from farms and deforestation in Mercosur, the emissions linked to cheese exports from Europe to Mercosur would see a colossal 497 per cent increase.

Shipping these products across the Atlantic on fuel-guzzling ships would also increase maritime carbon emissions and pollution. The EU already needlessly imports and exports the same products. For example, it exports around 700 000 tonnes of bovine meat and imports about 300 000 tonnes annually. Importing products that the EU already produces, such as lemons, oranges, beef, and wine, is astounding for a bloc aiming to be carbon neutral by 2050.

The industrial food system is responsible for up to 37 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions according to the International Panel on Climate Change. Supporting different agricultural models is key to reducing global warming by harnessing the soil’s capacity to capture carbon from the atmosphere. But it will not be thesmallholders, cooperatives, or sustainable organic farms who pay their employees fairly and look after the land that will benefit from exports to the EU. This deal will instead boost the expansion of industrial food production in Mercosur countries based on monocultures of genetically modified crops fed with vast amounts of pesticides and fertilisers, tended by exploited workers, and run by huge corporations. This model of agricultural production will increase pressures on peasant and indigenous communities already “being driven from their lands”.

Brazil is one of the top two users of pesticides globally. In 2019, 474 new pesticides were approved and the country is the largest annual buyer of the highly hazardous category of pesticides that cause “disproportionate harm to the environment and human health”. The French sugar industry claims that 74 per cent of pesticides used in Brazil are banned in Europe – and the country also permits the use of glyphosate, just as Greens and campaign groups around Europe are trying to ban the carcinogen. In theory, all products imported into the EU fulfil the same environmental and health standards as those produced within EU borders. But part of the deal includes a reduction in quality assurance checks, which are already “grossly insufficient”. It will be hard to ensure that agricultural production has not involved the use of pesticides or GMOs that are illegal in the EU.
More human rights abuses

It’s not just the environment that is at risk from pesticides – these substances lead to severe health problems in the towns and villages surrounding plantations. Campaigners fighting for alternatives to land grabs, deforestation, and agroindustry face the heavy hand of corporate and state repression. In 2018 alone, 20 environmental defenders, many indigenous, were murdered in Brazil.

Under Bolsonaro, the human rights situation will only get worse. Indigenous peoples will be especially hard hit. In 2016, he vowed to “give a rifle…to every farmer” – a promise to support businesses wanting to expand into indigenous territories. He is openly racist and hostile towards indigenous communities, lamenting in 1998 the incompetence of Brazil’s first colonisers for failing to wipe out indigenous peoples. According to the tribal rights organisation Survival International, Bolsonaro has “declared war” tantamount to genocide on indigenous people. He has been referred to the International Criminal Court by lawyers for inciting the “genocide of indigenous peoples” of Brazil and committing “crimes against humanity.”

Bolsonaro’s anti-indigenous agenda is part old-fashioned racism and part economic strategy. Fourteen per cent of Brazil’s land is indigenous territory. His plans to roll back environmental protection therefore rely on stripping back and delegitimising indigenous land rights.


Under Bolsonaro, the human rights situation will only get worse. Indigenous peoples will be especially hard hit.

The effects have already been felt. Armed groups are invading indigenous territory and attacking communities. One of the largest indigenous reserves, Yanomami Park, near the Venezuelan border and home to the Yanomami people, is now occupied by an estimated 20 000 illegal gold miners after the biggest incursion in decades. Survival International has reported an increase in invasions by land-grabbers, loggers, and farmers. In July 2019, the body of indigenous chief Emyra Waiapi was found with several stab wounds, and sources report invaders roaming Waiapi villages at night, assaulting women and children. Brazil’s indigenous peoples have responded with unprecedented mobilisations against the president.

The Mercosur deal also raises concerns about working conditions in the region. Although EU free trade agreements contain chapters about both parties having to comply with International Labour Organization standards, they are non-enforceable. Brazil has not yet ratified the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention (No. 87) and has not complied with the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention (No. 98). The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) named it one of the ten worst countries in the world for workers due to the violent repression of strikes and trade unionists. Slave labour is also a problem. In total, 52 700 workers were released from contemporary slavery in Brazil between 1995 and 2017, with about 32% of these being rescued from the cattle industry.

European producers have to prove they are meeting a minimum level of working conditions and pay, but this is already hard to enforce, as illustrated by recent revelations of sexual abuse and exploitation of Moroccan workers in Spain. In the United Kingdom, an estimated 10 000 to 13 000 people were exploited in the food and farming industry in 2018. With the EU struggling to enforce minimum standards within its own borders, how can it do so for products coming from a country across the Atlantic with a poor track record on workers’ rights and modern slavery?
Regional inequality

If the counter-argument is that Latin Americans will benefit from this deal, the agreement suggests that this will only be true of the region’s economic elite. Part of the reason this agreement has had the longest negotiation period in world history (starting officially in 1999) is that, for years, neither bloc was prepared to make concessions. It was Mercosur that eventually abandoned some of its key demands. For though it is an important deal for both regions, Mercosur makes up only 1.3 per cent of the EU’s exports, whereas almost 21 per cent of its exports go to the EU.

The EU’s place in the global value chain is – like much of the Global North – that of providing high value-added industrial products. Like much of the Global South, Mercosur has been forced to specialise in raw materials, often at great environmental and human cost. This deal would entrench these specialisations, with Mercosur providing mainly raw materials such as beef, honey, ethanol, poultry, fruit, and some protected regional products like wine, while Europe would specialise in industrial and manufacturing goods such as cars and car parts, chemicals, and machinery.


The EU’s dominant economic position – which owes a significant debt to centuries of European colonisation in Latin America – has permitted it to negotiate an agreement more beneficial to itself than to Mercosur.

A huge concession by the Mercosur region in the agreement is the total elimination of export tariffs on their agricultural products. Tariff eliminations benefit companies but not the public purse. This would have a huge effect on national budgets. Export tariffs accounted for 2.4 per cent of Argentina’s GDP in 2017.

The EU’s dominant economic position – which owes a significant debt to centuries of European colonisation in Latin America – has permitted it to negotiate an agreement more beneficial to itself than to Mercosur. Eduardo Galeano’s words, written almost 50 years ago, feel as relevant as ever: “Our region still works as a menial. It continues to exist at the service of others’ needs, as a source and reserve of oil and iron, of copper and meat, of fruit and coffee, the raw materials and foods destined for the rich countries which profit more from consuming them than Latin America does from producing them.”

An ocean away in Europe, farmers and agricultural unions are deeply concerned about the effect of cheap products pouring into the EU. Market experts in Poland, which sells 90 per cent of its exported beef to the EU and whose workforce is 13 per cent agricultural workers, assess the deal as unfavourable for the country’s beef and poultry sectors. Europe’s citrus, garlic, pear, and apple sectors will be damaged by imports from Argentina, while the EU’s main orange juice producer, Spain, will feel the impact of competing with Brazilian oranges and Uruguayan round grain rice, the same as that produced in the Spanish Levante. Farmer protestsprompted the Europe Commission to promise protection for the sector, though exactly how small farmers will compete with cheaper products remains unclear.
Not a done deal

On December 12 2019, the European Council declared that “all relevant EU legislation and policies need to be consistent with, and contribute to” climate neutrality. This deal is anything but. Furthermore, its unfair trade principles, its implications for human, worker, and indigenous rights, and its legitimisation of an authoritarian leader is a far from the sort of trade – and the sort of Europe – that Greens and progressives should be fighting for.

Across Europe, resistance has been strong and growing, from the European Parliament to NGOs and civil society. In June 2019, over 340 civil society and environmental organisations called on the EU to stop the deal, with Greenpeace labelling it a “disaster for the environment on both sides of the Atlantic”. European countries such as France and Ireland look unlikely to ratify it in their national parliaments. Within the European Parliament, the picture is mixed. MEPs from the largest centre-right group, the European People’s Party, have welcomed the deal, while the smaller right-wing groups have had little to say on this issue. The second and third largest groups, the Socialists and Democrats and liberal Renew Europe, have warned that they need more guarantees on environmental and human rights concerns, but have held back from more fundamental criticisms. Only the Greens/EFA Group, fourth largest and made up of Green and regionalist parties, and GUE/NGL, the smallest group of radical-left parties, oppose the deal.

The Greens/EFA group has released an in-depth study outlining the flaws in the agreement, concluding that while this kind of trade deal has “never [been] acceptable”, in the context of the climate crisis it has become “truly scandalous”. The GUE/NGL group has also warned the deal may encourage illicit money flows. Both groups have long criticised the EU’s trade model, which goes against their visions for sustainable trade [see here for more on a green vision for trade], and previously campaigned against the TTIP and CETA deals (with the United States and Canada respectively).


Among the losers will be the environment, Europe’s small farmers, and all those who suffer the effects of extreme weather. The worst consequences, however, will be felt by the Latin Americans.

On the other side of the Atlantic, recent disagreements between Brazil and Argentina (together making up 95 per cent of Mercosur’s GDP and population) are threatening the deal. While Brazil welcomes it, Argentina’s new president Alberto Fernández, who took office in December 2019, campaigned on revising the agreement. During the campaign, Bolsonaro, who reserves particular ire for female politicians, vowed to take Brazil out of Mercosur if former Argentinian president and now vice-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner – running alongside Fernández – won. With a left-leaning government – who appointed the president of Argentina’s Green Party Silvia Vázquez as director of environmental affairs within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – now in power, tensions have grown. The Brazilian president has again threatened to pull out of the bloc if Fernández “causes trouble” with the trade deal.

From European car manufacturers such as BMW to Argentinian cattle ranchers, the agreement holds promise for the economic elites of both regions, but precious few others. Among the losers will be the environment, Europe’s small farmers, and all those who suffer the effects of extreme weather. The worst consequences, however, will be felt by the Latin Americans faced with yet more abuses of power by profit-hungry corporations, human rights abuses, labour exploitation, environmental degradation, and economic disadvantage.

The lobbying and political power of the supporters of the EU-Mercosur deal cannot be underestimated. Politicians, civil society organisations, and campaigners on the ground all must keep exposing the agreement’s many flaws and campaigning against it. With a growing coalition of resistance both within and outside of the European institutions, the Mercosur trade agreement is not yet a done deal.

Special thanks to Seden Anlar and Xilo Clarke who contributed to the piece.
Julia Toynbee Lagoutte
15 May 2020https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/the-eu-mercosur-trade-deal-must-be-stopped/

Basic Income and Pandemic Preparedness

As we think about building societies that can be ready for pandemics and resilient to shocks, basic income needs to be part of the picture. The insecurity and hardship caused by the economic fallout of the COVID-19 crisis have prompted calls for an emergency basic income. The proposal could prove vital for people in many different situations: out of work, on reduced hours, or at-risk working in unsafe conditions. While it is unlikely to join the support announced by governments in the immediate future, the argument for a permanent, universal basic income grows stronger.

Winston Churchill is often credited for insisting that one should never let a good crisis go to waste. While the COVID-19 pandemic understandably forces our attention on the immediate here-and-now, it is opportune to also reflect on how our current predicament will affect our social relations and structures going forward. Areas of life that long seemed untouchable are suddenly open to questioning as the weaknesses and inequalities in the current systems are thrust to the forefront. In particular, insecurity contributes to the pressures many people are facing, undermining attempts to slow the spread of the disease due to the financial necessity of staying at work.

At the start of May, 88 countries around the world have announced 130 cash transfer programmes as part of the pandemic response, representing almost a doubling of pre-COVID levels. Most of the schemes are temporary, with the average duration being 3 months. Around a quarter of the programmes offer only a one-off transfer. Predictably, these programmes are heavily targeted at existing workers and affluence-tested and important coverage gaps remain. One immediate effect of the social and economic fallout of the global pandemic response is a sudden boost in civic, media and political support for what is most commonly called an emergency basic income (EBI). Whether calls from the First Minister of Scotland for the UK to devolve fiscal powers for the country to deliver the policy, pan-European petitions for the idea, or even the media excitement for the Spanish government’s minimum income proposal (not quite a basic income), it is clear that the idea has moved to the centre of policy debate across Europe.

Emergency basic income: flawed but still vital

The idea is simple enough. At a time when a significant portion of the workforce is forced to stay at home and individuals and families, as well as small businesses, are suffering economic hardship, government assistance should directly address the most urgent problem – loss of income. EBI is such an instrument: it offers immediate cash assistance (no delays or lags due to eligibility checks), it targets those most vulnerable to the economic crisis (even a universal payment has the greatest impact on the most disadvantaged), and it boosts pandemic solidarity by offering a burden-sharing mechanism that compensates those who have lost work or business opportunities and those essential workers who are continuing to service us all at considerable personal risk. A critical advantage of the proposal is that it would cover not merely those working in standard employment but also offer urgent income support to the self-employed, the precariously employed, and those with care responsibilities – paradoxically in many cases now deemed “essential workers”.

There is a need to think about the policy responses that promote social and economic resilience and pandemic preparedness. 

The EBI proposal has several drawbacks, however. The first is that it is essentially a temporary measure, meant to cover the period of severe economic fallout provoked by the lockdown measures. The assumption is that EBI would be a short-term response in the order of several months. But there remains serious uncertainty as to how long the economic fallout will last; economists predict COVID-19 will lead us into the most severe economic crisis since the 1930s and so the impact, especially on the most vulnerable and disadvantaged members of our society, may extend years beyond the time frame initially envisaged. This uncertainty undermines the boost to security that an EBI should bring – the temptation for governments to limit support to short-term measures reduces the belief that long-term support will be in place when most needed. In addition, as the economy settles back into whatever the “new normal” will be, the lingering effects will be felt very differently by different individuals and groups. Some may find their lives restored to something resembling their previous quality, but many will face continued hardship and face a cliff edge as soon as the support dries up.

A second drawback is that current calls for an EBI face both practical and political hurdles at a time when immediate remedies are required as a matter of urgency. The political hurdles are obvious and familiar to anyone who has advocated for basic income in pre-pandemic times. Even at a time when workers are effectively forced to reduce hours or give up their jobs, the politicians’ knee-jerk response to unconditional support is to baulk at giving out “money for nothing” and instead insist on relying on existing programmes, irrespective of how fit for purpose they are in current crisis conditions. Practical hurdles that impede the immediate implementation of an EBI exist as well. In many countries, ensuring every individual ends up on a register entitling them to this support is easier said than done, especially in a situation when bureaucratic capability is under severe stress. The same applies to the delivery mechanism of the EBI keeping in mind the surprisingly large number of individuals without bank accounts or fixed abode. These are practical hurdles that can be overcome given time, but time is precisely what is at a premium in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In short, EBI is a good idea and a potentially vital tool in a comprehensive pandemic policy response, but introducing it now is not likely to happen in many jurisdictions. But let us think ahead for a moment. COVID-19 took the world by surprise, despite public health officials, epidemiologists, and many others warning us for many years about the possibility of a pandemic scenario and its disastrous social and economic consequences. In large part because of our continued destructive relationship with the environment and our highly connected societal organisation, the same professionals predict that COVID-19 is but the first – and in fact not even the first, think about SARS and MERS – in a long line of viral epidemics. This means we need to think ahead in terms of preparedness and acknowledge that the new normal may be a world in which the sort of economic shock we experience today is likely to come about again – possibly sooner than expected, and possibly in the form of an even more deadly and destructive disease. There is a need, therefore, to think about the policy responses that promote social and economic resilience and pandemic preparedness. Resilience is about ensuring that society maintains the capability to adequately respond to the sudden shock of a viral pandemic. Resilient policies will ensure that urgent human needs continue to be met during the pandemic crisis in a manner that reflects key social values – compassion, fairness, solidarity.

Basic income as a tool for resilience and readiness

Basic income would play an important role in terms of promoting social and economic resilience as part of pandemic preparedness policy. We can think of basic income and pandemic preparedness in two ways. One way in which society can become more resilient is by getting itself ready to implement an EBI as soon as the situation mandates it. This means having the required political debates now rather than in the midst of the next crisis. The current crisis experience means politicians and other key stakeholders are very much alive to the need for a robust economic support programme. The merits of EBI in this context can be debated in advance and legislation allowing for triggering its introduction in a pandemic context can be voted upon. Similarly, the practical aspects of readying society for the urgent introduction of EBI when needed can be addressed well in advance, with appropriate decision-making on how to deliver the measure in a time of reduced workforce capacity. 

There is a stronger strategy to consider, however. The best way to prepare society for the pandemic is to institute a proper, permanent basic income: a small monthly cash grant paid to all individuals with no strings attached. Having an actual basic income already in place obviates the need for political debate or finding solutions to implementation concerns in the midst of a crisis. It may be that we start off with a low basic income grant that needs “dialling up” to a much higher level in the midst of the pandemic crisis, but that would merely require a political decision on financing while the instrument itself is readily available. We find a real-world example of this strategy in Brazil. At the start of 2020, the municipality of Maricá near Rio de Janeiro had already instituted a low basic income that paid a monthly 130 reais (roughly 21 euros) to around 42 000 residents – not quite universal but with 25 per cent of the population covered and plans to expand over time a close approximation of the basic income ideal. As soon as COVID-19 hit Maricá built on the existing basic income scheme and is now paying the same individuals 300 reais (almost 50 euros) as part of the pandemic emergency response. The Maricá experience offers a prime example of how we can implement a rapid real-time response to an emergency by ratcheting up a pre-existing scheme.

Increased trust and solidarity would also be a critical feature for building resilience into political systems that currently are under thread of populism, polarisation, and partisanship.

Having a basic income in place boosts resilience in many other ways. The effects of economic security on public health are already well documented and are likely to be even greater under the added stress of a pandemic crisis. The existence of, and experience with, a secure income floor will ensure individuals and families enter a possible pandemic crisis – including protracted lockdown restrictions – much better prepared and less worried about their economic security. The expectation of maintaining a secure economic floor will have a critical positive impact on stress and mental health both at the start and during a pandemic crisis. The existence of an economic security floor is also likely to boost social relations by increasing trust and solidarity, which again is a critical feature for dealing with a pandemic on the community level. Increased trust

https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/basic-income-and-pandemic-preparedness/