The European Parliament voted on Wednesday to refer the EU-Mercosur trade agreement to the EU Court of Justice, a move that significantly delays the deal and could potentially derail its final approval.
As expected, the vote was tight, with 334 MEPs in favour of the referral, 324 against, and 11 abstaining.
The agreement signed on 17 January, which will create a free trade area of over 700 million people, is controversial across Europe, and several countries like France and Poland have opposed it.
The agreement’s advocates consider it a major opportunity for European industries and a way to bolster the EU’s geostrategic position, especially at a time of constant friction with the United States. But it has also drawn outrage from farmers worried about the implications of cheap and lower-standard food from South American countries flooding into the European market.
So, why didn’t they listen? It is a clearly understandable concern, isn’t it?
There are many quotas on agricultural products from south America to the point where major South American agro exports can only supply 1-10% of total current EU consumption tariff free. I believe honey was highest around 10% of total EU demand with most being around 1-3% such as for beef. For most agro products, South America exports more stuff to Europe than the tariffs would cover
To mee, it seems these quotes probably mean there will be little change in agro exports from South America since the tariff on those items have only been slightly relieved. We should definitely protect EU farmers but we shouldn’t hold up the rest of the economy for them.
Yes. For beef, it is 1.5% of annual EU consumption that would be tariff-free, if I remember correctly.
(worry about food standards)
(question about food standards)
(answer about tax/tariffs on food , completely orthogonal to discussion)
really? Wrong chat?
Chill bruv… Can we not have a civil discussion? I’d be happy to change my mind.
Food being sold in the EU still have to meet EU food health and safety standards. Regardless of where it comes from this is legally the case. How these things are verified/policed is a different question and idk the situation on that. If enforcement is not good, that issue would still be there even without the bill. The bill probably won’t increase imports much so these policing problems likely wont grow.
Their stuff is cheaper for 2 reasons. The costs of running their farms is cheaper due to cheap labour with fewer workers rights. Conversely, cost of running farms in the EU is more expensive due to higher salaries, workers rights, and that other inputs are more expensive than elsewhere (I understand that fertiliser is quite expensive here for example). This is what tariffs protected against before and, like I said before, the deal only allows for a small proportion of those imports to not be tariffed. I think it will only be a small impact to farmers though, obviously, not 0 impact.
My point is that this deal likely won’t increase exports from there to the EU (in most categories). So this notion that the continent will be overrun by cheap, unsafe food doesn’t stand up when you see how little extra south American agro exports there will likely be imported
OK but how does it seem to the protesting farmers?
I mean, obviously they don’t want competition… That’s fair enough but they aren’t the only people that live in the EU. They are already subsidised and there are provisions for more subsidies if needed.
If the deal improves trade and grows the EU economy, we can afford to subsidise them more in future when needed
Thank you for repeating your own opinion.
But how does it seem to the protesting farmers?
Thank you for repeating your question.
They are obviously not happy. Perhaps you could outline their perspective so we can have a discussion
They did listen, for 25 years actually. But apparently no concession to the concerns of the farmers can be big enough.
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