Today, in an unprecedented vote, a qualified majority of EU countries approved the toxic EU-Mercosur trade deal despite 25 years of dissent from civil society groups, farmers’ organisations and trade unions. This is the first time an EU trade agreement has been passed without consent of all member States, overruling objections from major European countries such as France and Poland. The European Trade Justice Coalition strongly condemns the outright refusal by the European Commission and European governments to consider the widespread concern over the deal’s impacts for agriculture, health, workers and the climate. A choice made even more reckless in a context of growing anti-European sentiment.
Jean Blaylock, coordinator of the European Trade Justice Coalition, said:
“European leaders are choosing to prioritise profits for big business, even if it means harming everyone else. By signing this deal, they threaten the livelihoods of workers and small-scale and family farmers on both sides of the Atlantic, violate Indigenous rights, poison people and destroy nature.”
The EU Council’s vote comes in an exceptionally untransparent and confusing process where numerous procedural exceptions were made, and after the European Commission bypassed national parliaments and European Parliament interventions.
Frances Verkamp, trade campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe, commented:
“The European Commission is playing a game of imperial dominance in global trade with China and the US that wins nothing for workers or consumers – and even less for nature and climate. This deal is all-round toxic and EU leaders will rue the day they signed it.”
Jan Königshausen, advisor for Indigenous People from the Society for Threatened Peoples, added:
“By prioritizing market access over human rights, the EU–Mercosur agreement risks worsening the situation of Indigenous Peoples and marginalized communities in South America. It externalizes environmental destruction, social conflict, and violence to those who have contributed least to these crises, while offering them little protection or voice.”
Past studies have found that the EU-Mercosur agreement will lead to a loss of 120.000 jobs in Europe, drastically increase greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation, and weaken indigenous and workers’ rights. It cannot be a solution to today’s climate crisis, recession or geopolitical tension.
Moreover, the way this deal has been concluded poses a serious threat to democracy. It was only made possible through unprecedentedly opaque and undemocratic methods, including splitting the deal to enable a vote without a new mandate and denying the European Parliament access to the opinion of the Court of Justice of the EU.
Additionally, the proposed agricultural “safeguards” are insufficient to prevent harm to struggling smallholder farmers, who face multiple pressures from global liberalisation and other free-trade agreements under negotiation.
Note
Safeguards for Agriculture fail to protect farmers: The agricultural safeguards that have been proposed by the Commission – even with amendments – fail to protect farmers and instead serve as a communication tool to sell a bad deal. The measures do too little too late: they only take effect at a very late stage, when ‘significant damage’ has already been done. Safeguards do not address structural asymmetries and thus cannot deliver meaningful protections against unfair competition. Due to their short-term nature, their effects remain very limited, while the agreement binds the European Union in the long term. More information here.
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Stop the EU-Mercosur trade deal
The EU is close to finalising a climate-wrecking trade deal with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay – known collectively as Mercosur. But there’s still time to stop it.
