There can be no further doubt. The European Union will apply the free trade agreement with the South American countries of Mercosur on a provisional basis.
The European Commission had previously indicated that it would do so once a Mercosur country had voted to ratify the trade agreement.
It is now official: on Thursday 26 February, Uruguay and Argentina completed their ratification process ahead of schedule. Brazil and Paraguay are also well on the way to doing so.
“I have said before: when they are ready, we are ready. Therefore, over the last weeks, I have discussed this intensively with Member States, and with Members of the European Parliament”, stated the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, on Friday 27 February.
This means that the agreement, signed on 19 January in Paraguay (see EUROPE 13789/14), will enter into provisional application with each of the Mercosur countries individually, two months after each has exchanged a note verbale with the EU. Before that, the EU must simply send a note verbale to Paraguay, in its capacity as the legal depositary of the Mercosur treaties.
The European Commission has not yet specified when this will take place.
A “bad surprise”. These developments, although expected, were greeted coolly by the most ardent opponents of the free trade agreement. This is the case of the French President, Emmanuel Macron, who described the confirmation of provisional application as a “bad surprise” and a “heavy responsibility” on the part of the Commission towards European farmers, who fear an influx of low-cost agricultural imports.
He is not the only one to have expressed his dismay. MEPs opposed to the agreement said that they had been wronged because the Commission and the Member States had not waited for a vote of consent from the European Parliament. Nor did they wait for the Court of Justice of the EU to give its opinion on the compatibility of the agreement with the Treaties, as requested by Parliament in a vote on 21 January (see EUROPE 13791/2).
These objections have been echoed by criticism from civil society, with 170 groups, including environmental organisations and representatives of the farming community, urging the EU, on Friday, to respect democratic processes without excluding the European Parliament (https://aeur.eu/f/kye ).
A decision that “complies with the Treaties”. European Commission spokesperson Olof Gill said that the procedure was “in line with the treaties governing the European Union, for which all European institutions have given their consent”.
For Germany, this is a historic gesture, as highlighted by the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, Johann Wadephul, who explained on X that Germany “will work tirelessly to help tap the full potential of this historic agreement”.
Pro-Mercosur MEPs, such as the Chair of the Committee on International Trade (INTA), German Socialist Bernd Lange, welcomed the fact that “where others are breaking rules, we provide certainty, predictability and economic opportunities for our consumers and producers”.
In the same vein, the EPP spokesperson for international trade, Jörgen Warborn (Swedish), welcomed an agreement which, at a time of geopolitical insecurity, “strengthens our strategic influence”. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)