00:00Musique
00:00Musique
00:01The EU-Mercosur partnership agreement foresees the creation of the world's largest free trade zone.
00:20It took 25 years to reach an agreement that is now on the table for ratification.
00:26However, the process that the European Commission has put in place is being challenged by several sectors.
00:33There are also a few member states highly skeptical of the deal, like we will reveal in this EU Decoded.
00:41Mercosur is a South American trade bloc comprised of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
00:48The agreement with the EU will create a market of 780 million consumers, representing 25% of world trade.
00:58Many European products now pay high export tariffs to the Mercosur bloc, such as cars 35%, wine and spirits up to 35%, cheese 28%, machinery up to 20%.
01:14With the deal, those tariffs will be eliminated or significantly reduced.
01:19Farmers, environmentalists, some groups in the European Parliament and a few member states oppose the deal.
01:26We'll explore this later in the programme, but let's hear what some Europeans think.
01:31In fact, it's in my concurrence, especially with the French industry and its agriculture, with the South American industry, which produces with different norms and has a lot lower cost.
01:43On the other hand, it's not possible to sacrifice food and on the other hand, it's possible to sacrifice peasants, peasants.
01:49I think that it's good, because our partners on the world, with whom we always have so good trade, are the things not so clear as before.
01:58But I think it's also geregelt, that it's the same as we have the same as we have here our landowners.
02:06We want to provide quality, that the beef from Brazil and Argentina also has the European standard.
02:12Euronews reporter Peggy Corla is an expert on trade policy.
02:18To ratify this agreement, which is both commercial and political, the European Commission proposes using two different procedures.
02:27Can you explain?
02:28The whole agreement contains parts such as the political part, which have to be ratified by national and regional parliaments.
02:35It is a risky undertaking, because if the whole agreement is ratified by national parliaments, it means that some of them may oppose the text,
02:45as it happened already in the past, when national parliaments such as the Dutch one or the Austrian one opposed the agreement.
02:53So the European Commission has decided to separate the trade part, which falls under the exclusive competence of the EU,
03:01so that the Council will vote the text, the member states voting by qualified majority,
03:08and the text will be also voted by the European Parliament by simple majority.
03:12This way, the trade part has more chances to be implemented quickly.
03:17Which member states are more sceptical of this agreement? Why is that?
03:21And how many do we need in terms of vote for this agreement to be approved and enter into force?
03:28France has long led the opposition to the agreement on the ground that it would create unfair competition to its farmers.
03:37But it may have changed today, because the European Commission has given assurances that it would strengthen controls
03:44over imports coming from Mercosur countries and their impact on the EU markets.
03:51But Poland now is stepping up against the deal.
03:56Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he was opposed to the agreement.
04:01But it remains uncertain whether he is going to be able to gather a blocking minority against the deal.
04:08Because indeed, to be signed, the deal requires 15 member states in favour of it,
04:14and a blocking minority would require 5 member states representing 35% of the population.
04:20The agricultural sector is one of the biggest critics of the agreement,
04:25which is why the European Commission recently added safeguards.
04:30Quotas that limit the import of products considered more sensitive,
04:34such as beef, poultry, sugar, rice and honey.
04:39Increased controls that may lead to the suspension of imports of a certain product
04:43if they increase by more than 10% or prices fall by more than 10%.
04:47EU pesticide and animal welfare rules will have to be followed by Mercosur countries,
04:54a 6.3 billion euros fund to help farmers affected by market crises.
05:00I'm joined now by Karel Lennon, chief executive of the Centre for European Policy Studies.
05:08Can the EU afford not to ratify this agreement,
05:11considering that it had to make a lot of concessions in the trade deal with the US
05:17that will raise tariffs to 15%?
05:20We need to know, let's say, that the geopolitical situation,
05:23since it was negotiated, started to negotiate 25 years ago until today,
05:26has changed so much.
05:28If we go to Latin America, and we see this also for Mercosur,
05:31the most important trading partner has become China.
05:33So if we know, say, we need to be respected as a partner,
05:39also, for example, with the United States,
05:41then we should respect ourselves and say,
05:43we absolutely need to conclude this agreement,
05:45also to become a more important trading partner for Latin America.
05:49And if we were not to do this, I mean, it will just,
05:52after this, I would say, almost scandalous EU-US agreement,
05:56just put the EU in a corner of being an unreliable partner.
06:01The partnership will also create access to the essential raw materials
06:06as an alternative to China that concentrates a lot of that production.
06:10So how significant is this for the European industry, for instance?
06:14It's, again, an opportunity for us, I mean, to reduce, I mean,
06:19drastically this huge dependence which we have from China,
06:22which was built up without us noticing it.
06:25And now we have an opportunity to say,
06:26look, we'll do it with another region.
06:28We will just reduce our huge exposure to China and to say,
06:32look, we will make sure that Brazil can, or say, Argentina or Peru
06:36can also develop their commodities or, say, their raw materials export to Europe.
06:42So in addition to MECASU, the EU has also revised an agreement with Mexico.
06:48Where should the EU look next for partners?
06:51We should, above all, as a policy, after what the US has done to us,
06:56let's say in this trade agreement from the 18th of August,
06:59make sure that we find a group of countries which have the similar approach to trade
07:06and to the maintenance, above all, of the trading system,
07:09which we have in the post-World War II order,
07:12where we go for a system, underscored by the WTO, the World Trade Organization,
07:17where we apply these principles of most favoured nation clause
07:21and where we want to have, as the EU wants, as much as possible, zero tariffs.
07:26International trade is one of the arenas in which the EU projects its political and economic model.
07:33Some tout economic benefits and new markets,
07:36while others warn about the risks of more concessions to multinationals,
07:41increasing risks of deforestation in Amazonia and consumer losses.
07:46Given the tariffs recently imposed by the US on the bloc,
07:50some European governments most critical of the agreement with Mercosul may now change their minds.
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