The French government has called for a delay on a crucial vote by EU member states on the controversial EU-Mercosur trade agreement, saying European agriculture needed “legitimate protections”.
“France is asking for the December deadlines to be pushed back so we can keep working and get the legitimate protections our European agriculture needs,” the office of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said Sunday evening.
He said that safeguards proposed by the Commission to reassure farmers were “still incomplete”, adding they “must be finalized and implemented in an operational, robust and effective manner in order to produce and appreciate their full effects.”
“France can only pronounce itself in a definitive manner on the basis of concrete, precise elements that can be put into action, and not just on the basis of announcements.”
“This is why France is asking for the next steps in December to be pushed back, to continue the work and to obtain legitimate protections for our European agriculture,” a statement released by his office said.
The EU-Mercosur deal has been in negotiations for over 25 years and would create the world’s biggest free trade area, encompassing the EU member states and the Mercosur trade bloc of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
The deal allows a quota of 99,000 tonnes of Mercosur beef into the EU annually at a reduced tariff of 7.5%, and has led to strong opposition from European farming organisations who fear the impact of increased beef imports, and point to the differences in regulatory standards in the relative jurisdictions.
“Several countries warn that the holdup risks ultimately killing the trade deal, concerned that further stalling it could embolden opposition in the European Parliament or complicate next steps when Paraguay, which is skeptical toward the agreement, takes over the presidency of the Mercosur bloc from current holder Brazil,” Politico reported this morning.
Earlier this month, critics said that the revelation that dangerous hormones, banned in the European Union since 1981, had been detected in Brazilian beef now circulating in the European food chain, should sound the death knell for the Mercosur Trade Deal.
Mattie McGrath TD was amongst many rural TDs who said that the opening up of the market would “devastate” Irish farming – while it was also described as sounding a “death-knell” for Irish agriculture.
Ireland, Poland, Hungary and Austria remain opposed to the deal but it could pass by Qualified Majority Vote unless Italy and France both opposed the deal.