The EU-Mercosur trade deal is set to pass its first hurdle on Wednesday despite another major protest by farmers outside the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
Several thousand farmers and 700 tractors gathered in Strasbourg on Tuesday (20 January) to protest against the EU’s proposed trade agreement with Mercosur, the South American trade bloc that includes Brazil and Argentina.
The pact, which has taken more than 25 years to negotiate, was signed by EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Mercosur leaders at a ceremony in Paraguay on Saturday. It promises to create the world’s biggest duty and quota-free trade area , and the commission says that it will save EU businesses more than €4bn in export duties alone.
However, the bloc’s farming lobby has been one of the most vocal critics of an agreement with Mercosur, warning that its agricultural produce is made to lower standards and often using pesticides that are banned in the EU.
“We’re not happy with what’s happening currently in our French and European society. I’m sad about how things are going in France right now,” one woman told EUobserver, “I see French agriculture declining day by day. I wish to leave this Europe that I never voted for. I never wanted this opening of borders.”
Another man from the French agricultural union Coordination Rurale told EUobserver: “Mercosur is nonsense; we have everything we need in our country, and once again, for money, we’re going to export our good products to import bad products that don’t meet our regulations.”
MEPs are due to vote on Wednesday on a resolution drafted by the Left group which would refer the Mercosur agreement to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for a legal opinion on its compatibility with EU law. If successful, the resolution would likely delay the ratification of the trade deal by at least one year.
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