EU Member States could give the green light to the EU/Mercosur trade agreement as early as Friday 12 December, according to several sources. This would enable the European Affairs and Foreign Affairs Ministers to sign the final decision early next week, and the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to travel to Brazil on 20 December to sign the agreement alongside the leaders of the Mercosur bloc.
Another option is for the Member States to vote at the last minute, on Friday 19 December. This would give the EU Council less than a day to formally adopt the decision.
Another factor that needs to be taken into account is the progress made on the draft regulation that establishes the precise safeguard mechanism in the agreement. The European Parliament will not vote on this issue until Tuesday 16 December, and its position is likely to differ from that of the EU Council. If this were indeed the case, negotiations between the two institutions would be necessary before the regulation could be finalised.
This safeguard clause is important to several Member States who are concerned about the impact of the agreement on the agricultural sector. A finalised and adopted text would reassure them before the conclusion of the free trade treaty.
However, due to lack of time, the EU Council could decide to move towards the conclusion of the agreement without having the final word on the safeguard, on the assumption that it will be adopted.
The outcome of the discussions between Parliament and the EU Council on the safeguard does, however, present a risk: if the co-legislators were to tighten up the text too much, the Mercosur countries could, in turn, decide to reject it.
Parliament process. At the vote in Strasbourg on 16 Tuesday, the report by Gabriel Mato (EPP, Spanish) adopted by the INTA Committee (see EUROPE 13768/13) could be subject to further amendments.
Joint amendments have been tabled by members of several political groups to make it easier to trigger a safeguard investigation. The authors of the amendments would like, for example, the conditions of a fall in the price of a product and an increase in imports not to be cumulative, but each to be sufficient to trigger an investigation.
They also want a safeguard to be activated in the event of imports of products that do not comply with European standards on food safety, animal health or environmental protection. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)