Malta should threaten to block a global trade deal unless Brazil takes concerted action to stop Amazon rainforest fires, the Democratic Party said on Saturday. 

The party urged Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to “send a message to brazil to protect the Amazon” by blocking the EU-Mercosur trade deal. 

It also called for a boycott of items produced as a result of deforestation in the Amazon.

“We must not provide a market for such goods, or it makes us Europeans equally responsible for the destruction, and thus makes us responsible for our own destruction as well,” said party depuy leader Timothy Alden.

The EU-Mercosur deal is arguably the biggest international trade deal the EU has ever finalised and involves goods ranging from tobacco to farm products, chemicals and food. 

It also commits Brazil to meet climate change targets set at the Paris Accord.

France and Ireland have said they will not ratify the deal until Brazil takes appropriate steps to control the fires, and Finland's foreign minister has suggested that the EU should ban imports of Brazilian beef. 

Germany has said that a trade deal veto is "not the right response" to the fires but Chancellor Angela Merkel has pledged to make the topic a key issue of discussion at Saturday's G7 summit. 

Forest fires caused by the burning of deforestation debris have raged across large sections of the Amazon rainforest in recent weeks, prompting global alarm at what ecologists say could be an environmental catastrophe. 

Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has appeared reluctant to take action, with his presidency having encouraged accelerated deforestation of the forest.

Fires have raged uncontrollably for weeks. Photo: AFPFires have raged uncontrollably for weeks. Photo: AFP

Forest fires, he told the nation on Friday, happened everywhere and “cannot serve as a pretext for possible international sanctions”. 

Despite those words, on Saturday Mr Bolsonaro said he would send in armed forces to try and quell the fires. 

In its statement, the PD said that Malta’s MEPs also had a role to play in applying concerted pressure to act quickly. 

“Unless strategic pressures are exerted on the global stage, then the fight against the climate emergency is already lost, which will come at unimaginable cost to our country and to generations to come,” the party said. 

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