EU pressure on Brazil over Amazon fires

DUBLIN/BRUSSELS, August 23 

The European Union piled pressure on Friday on Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro over fires raging in the Amazon basin, with Ireland and France saying they could block a trade deal with South America. Bolsonaro has rejected what he calls foreign interference in domestic affairs in Brazil, where vast tracts of the Amazon rainforest are ablaze in what is known as the burning season.

He said the army could be sent to help fight the fires.

Environmentalists have blamed deforestation for an increase in fires and accuse the right-wing president of relaxing protection of a vast carbon trap and climate driver that is crucial to combating global climate change.

French President Emmanuel Macron's office said Bolsonaro had lied in playing down concerns about climate change at the G20 summit in Japan in June and that, in this light, France would oppose the deal struck between the EU and the Mercosur countries: Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said Dublin would vote against the deal unless Brazil acted to protect the rainforest.

Varadkar said he was very concerned at the record levels of rainforest destruction.

"There is no way that Ireland will vote for the European Union-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement if Brazil does not honour its environmental commitments," he said in a statement. — Reuters