On Thursday 18 December in Brussels, French President Emmanuel Macron won a reprieve on the Mercosur dossier, after the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, proposed at the European Council that the signing of the trade agreement be postponed by a month.
Ursula von der Leyen had hoped to initial this free trade agreement on Saturday 20 December, during the Mercosur summit in the Brazilian town of Foz do Iguaçu. She will have to wait a few weeks.
The Danish Presidency of the Council of the EU was planning a vote on Friday 19 December in the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the Member States to the EU (Coreper) on the two decisions (conclusion, as well as signature and provisional application) of the EU/Mercosur partnership agreement.
The postponement announced by Ms von der Leyen means that the issue is no longer on the agenda for Friday’s Coreper meeting. The Commission is confident about the future.
“We have achieved a decisive breakthrough paving the way for the finalisation of the EU/Mercosur agreement in January. We need a few more weeks to respond to the concerns of the Member States, and we have agreed with our Mercosur partners to postpone the signing for a short time”, declared Ms von der Leyen on Friday 19 December at the end of the European Council.
She reiterated that this agreement is “crucial for Europe, economically, diplomatically and geopolitically”. Thanks to additional controls and safeguards, “we have built in all the necessary safeguards for our farmers and consumers”, she stressed.
“Efforts are underway to postpone the Mercosur Summit, which will give us a few extra weeks to try and provide the answers our farmers are looking for and the necessary guarantees for our products”, said Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni. The Brazilian President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, had opened the way for this postponement after a telephone conversation with Ms Meloni. She had asked him to be patient, assuring him that Italy would ultimately support the agreement. At the same time, several other Member States (Poland, Hungary, Ireland) voiced their criticism of the agreement. These countries formed a potential blocking minority in the EU Council.
Mr Macron said on Friday that the agreement “is not acceptable as it stands. We have begun to obtain a robust safeguard clause, which will act as an emergency brake to protect our agricultural sectors. We now want it to be definitively adopted and to complement the agreement”.
Mr Macron also called for reciprocity measures, “because we cannot accept that products imported from third countries should not be subject to the same standards as those imposed on our producers”. Finally, France wants a European health protection force to be set up, with tighter veterinary and plant health controls. The Commission has committed to step up controls by early 2026 (see EUROPE 13769/16). The French President warned that he did not know what France’s position would be in January, adding that it was too early to say.
Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish Prime Minister, pointed out that the agreement had been under negotiation for twenty-five years and said that it could wait another month.
On Thursday in Brussels, the EU’s agricultural cooperatives and organisations (Copa-Cogeca) rallied 10,000 demonstrators to demand a trade that protects production standards and the EU’s most sensitive sectors. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur, with the editorial staff)