Brussels warns that negotiations on Mercosur remain open

The European Commission continues negotiating with Mercosur to close the trade agreement.

Despite pressure from France - President Emmanuel Macron sent a letter to Brussels asking to end these talks - and the extension of the agricultural protests, which have free trade pacts in their sights, the vice president of the Executive of the Union and head of its trade policy, Valdis Dombrovskis, recalled this Monday in the European Parliament that “the negotiation continues.”

“Obviously I have heard President Macron's statements.

And also those of Chancellor [Olaf] Scholz and those of the President of the Government [Pedro] Sánchez, who are really very supportive of this agreement,” he responded to the MEPs when they asked him about the status of these conversations.

The French rejection of the pact with Mercosur, like that of Ireland or Austria, does not arise from the recent agricultural protests.

It comes long.

Paris, for example, took advantage of the changing of the guard in the Argentine Government in December to show its rejection of the closing of the trade agreement.

Then the outgoing administration in Buenos Aires, that of Alberto Fernández, did not want to assume the responsibility of signing the pact once and for all, and France aligned itself with that position.

In recent weeks, the channel has been the agricultural protests.

The point is that the great trade agreement with the Latin American region known as Mercosur (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay) is still pending ratification almost five years after reaching an agreement in principle, a point reached after more than 20 years of talks. .

From Europe - mainly France, the Netherlands, Austria and Ireland, plus the European Parliament - there was resistance, more environmental commitment was demanded.

The arrival of the far-right Jair Bolsonaro to the Brazilian presidency served as an excuse for his detractors to put the principle of agreement in the freezer.

Lula's return to power in Brasilia seemed like an opportunity to resurrect it, but old resistance flourishes with each new difficulty.

“After the last rounds of negotiation, the conclusions were that the conditions were not yet met to conclude the agreement,” said Dombrovskis in the Agriculture Commission of the European Parliament.

“At some specific points, in the Mercosur agreement, obviously, we are even looking at agricultural issues.

We have been very careful in calibrating the level of access, for example, in the area of ​​beef [...].

We have incorporated a safeguard mechanism [...].

And there are also possibilities of financial support for farmers should the need arise, although we do not expect it," he reviewed, before recalling that "the European Commission is negotiating, based on the mandate of 27 Member States and consulting some member states".

The intervention of the Trade Commissioner in the European Parliament, focused on the impact of trade policy on the agricultural sector, has been marked, logically, by the latest farmers' protests.

However, the Latvian politician has not been daunted by the situation.

He has recognized the work of farmers.

But he has asked that the debate on commercial exchanges, also those of the primary sector, be based on data and facts: "We must avoid mixing apples with pears and not act based on perceptions, sometimes erroneous and contrary to the interests of our society, including the interests of our farmers.”

This phrase came at the end of his initial intervention, in which he defended that the EU has a trade surplus in the primary sector of 60 billion euros.

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