- Strategic Partnership
The EU concluded a strategic partnership agreement with Brazil. Similar ties have previously been established with the United States and the remainder of the emerging economies also known as the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries. Brazil is Latin America's biggest economy and the country is expected to boast a 4% growth rate in 2007.
- Trade and Agriculture
Brazil is the EU's main trading partner in Latin America, with a total trade volume around €39 billion in 2005. The EU imported mostly agricultural products for €23 billion euros and exported goods worth €16 billion.
The special relationship with Brazilia could be a door-opener for closer economic ties with Mercosur, the South-American free trade zone of which Brazil is the economic champion. This is set to revive trade talks between the EU and Mercosur, which are currently blocked as a result of the global conflict on the Doha WTO round.
In this round, developing nations led by Brazil and India want the EU and the US to reduce farm subsidies, while the US and the EU are pushing Brazil, India and others to open up their markets for industrial goods and services.
- Biofuels
Brazil is by far the world's most important producer of fuels made from plants (see LinksDossier Biofuels for transport), and Brazil has the greatest potential worldwide for affordable biofuels, experts say. The country's traditional sugar cane cultures provide biomass for the production of ethanol, and soy beans are used to make fuel oils. As a symbolic first step on 4 July 2007, Portuguese oil company Galp Energia signed an agreement with Brazil's Petrobras to have 600,000 tons of vegetable oils produced in Brazil.
- Global warming
Brazil is home to the Amazon rainforest, which is by far the world's most important producer of Oxygen and capturer of CO2. Big parts of the rainforest are threatened by deforestation - not least because of increased production of biofuels.
