“Signing an agreement does not close the subject” | EUROtoday

La finalization of negotiations on the free commerce settlement between Mercosur [Argentine, Brésil, Paraguay, Uruguay] and the European Union (EU) is due to this fact postponed till January 2026. We can contemplate that it is a good factor, as a result of, as our agricultural unions say, the account just isn’t there but.

Furthermore, on this topic, we can not stay in a purely defensive place; we should provide one thing optimistic. Especially because the signing of an settlement doesn’t shut the topic: we’d like an entire technique to implement it appropriately.

Limiting ourselves to the topic of beef, allow us to first return to the query of unfair competitors {that a} liberalization of commerce between our two areas of the world may have prompted to our breeders. In 1997, simply earlier than the beginning of the negotiations, I used to be contacted by the European Commission to hold out a prognosis of the state of agricultural manufacturing and commerce between the European Union and Mercosur.

I do not forget that in Brussels my interlocutors had been all effectively conscious {that a} whole opening of borders would have swept away European cattle breeding. This is how, after twenty-four years of negotiations, the annual import quota is as we speak set at 99,000 tonnes per yr, or 1.2% of European consumption. Our European cattle breeding will due to this fact not be worn out, however extra struggling will likely be added to those who exist already. Hence the necessity for compensation that the EU should grant to this sector.

Social norms

The basic debate considerations environmental requirements. There is unfair competitors as a result of the Mercosur nations don’t apply the identical requirements as ours. It is due to this fact crucial to use mirror clauses, making it attainable to require third nations to use the identical environmental requirements as these imposed in Europe. This is the purpose on which our 4 main French agricultural union organizations agree past their specificities. For as soon as, they’re additionally in tune with environmental NGOs and a big a part of public opinion within the EU. In my opinion, they’re 100 instances proper.

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