On Tuesday, 27 January, MEPs in the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade (INTA) approved by a show of hands the interinstitutional agreement reached with the Council of the EU on 17 December concerning the safeguard clause in the EU–Mercosur agreement (see EUROPE 13789/14).
The regulation governing this clause provides for a safeguard investigation to be activated as soon as a 5% increase in imports combined with a 5% drop in prices is observed.
Last December, the co-legislators had agreed on thresholds set at 8%. Nevertheless, EU countries ultimately aligned themselves with the European Parliament’s initial 5% thresholds in an attempt to appease the large Member States that were the most reluctant towards the agreement—such as France and Italy—which were worried about their respective agricultural sectors (see EUROPE 13781/1).
According to main rapporteur Gabriel Mato (EPP, Spanish), this position is “crucial”, as “it allows us to act before the damage caused to the market becomes irreversible”. He also stressed how important it was for the European Commission to introduce a system to track and monitor imports of sensitive products.
Meanwhile, last week, the European Parliament voted in favour of referring the matter to the Court of Justice of the EU in order to assess whether the trade agreement with Mercosur countries is compatible with the EU Treaties (see EUROPE 13791/2).
This request has caused the agreement’s ratification process in the European Parliament to be delayed, which has not failed to irritate the European Commission. The latter has not yet officially made a decision regarding the agreement’s potential provisional application—circumventing the European Parliament’s approval—but has not ruled out [approving it] once one or more Mercosur countries have ratified the agreement on their side (see EUROPE 13792/2).
The European Parliament will still need to approve the regulation on the safeguard clause during its plenary session, which will take place the week of 9 February.
To review the regulation on the safeguard clause: https://aeur.eu/f/kfe (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)