📋 Tender Overview
Foreign producers who want to sell their products in the country may have to adopt levels of greenhouse gas emissions equal to or lower than those in Brazil, as well as protecting the environment in standards compatible with the Brazilian Forest Code. This is what determines the project that can be voted on the Environment Commission (CMA), which meets on Tuesday (18).
Senator Zequinha Marinho (Somos-PA) Bill (PL), modifies the National Policy on Climate Change (PNMC) to adopt reciprocal treatment to countries and economic blocks that impose environmental restrictions on trade with Brazil. The parliamentarian, in justifying his project, specifically mentioned the commercial barriers imposed by Europe on Brazilian products. He contrasted the rigor of the environmental defense legislation in Brazil - and the high cost of compliance with their rules - with the continuity of environmental depredation by European countries.
There were released agricultural crops even in areas of environmental preservation of rural real estate, hitherto limited to only 5% of rural property, exempting small producers of the obligation (while in Brazil this percentage ranges from 20 to 80%). In the Old World was also flexible the mandatory distance between crops and watercourses (2 meters wide on the banks of the river), while in Brazil this track is 30 to 500 meters, depending on the width of the river, said Zequinha.
The proposition was debated in two public hearings, on May 22 and December 4, 2024. In his report in favor of the proposal, Senator Tereza Cristina (PP-MS) lamented the lack of action of the World Trade Organization (WTO), especially after 2020, and also criticized the European Union.
The European Block takes advantage of the paralysis of the WTO controversy mechanism to selectively compel the fulfillment of its environmental standards, with high proof costs to certain countries of the world. This is not a true anti -dismay law, but a rule that imposes a series of obligations to prove the origin of a product, which makes it very costly to export to that block, noted the rapporteur. Tereza Cristina offered a substitute (alternative text) to avoid a retaliatory spiral and to preserve the attributions of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Development, Industry, Trade and Services for Treatment of Commercial Barriers. PL 2.088/2023 is the only item of the voting agenda of the deliberative meeting of 18 March. After the CMA, the project will continue to analyze the Commission on Economic Affairs (CAE), whose decision is terminative.
