EU-Mercosur trade deal referred to Court of Justice
www.euronews.com
After clearing major political hurdles after more than two decades, the mammoth trade deal now faces further delay pending a judicial verdict. #EuropeNews

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.

  • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
    2·
    5 days ago

    worried about the implications of cheap and lower-standard food

    (worry about food standards)

    So, why didn’t they listen? It is a clearly understandable concern, isn’t it?

    (question about food standards)

    to the point where major South American agro exports can only supply 1-10% of total current EU consumption tariff free.

    (answer about tax/tariffs on food , completely orthogonal to discussion)

    really? Wrong chat?

    • the_swagmaster@lemmy.zipEnglish
      2·
      5 days ago

      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