00:00Reports out of Brussels say EU ambassadors have given provisional backing to the EU-Mercosur trade agreement.
00:07Here in France, farmers have been protesting in the capital with their tractors.
00:11They say that their livelihoods would be threatened by unfair competition from South America.
00:17The French president has said he will vote no against this agreement.
00:21Ireland, Poland also expected to vote no, and still the agreement is expected to pass.
00:26Let's speak to Alberto Rizzi, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
00:31Hello to you, Alberto. Thank you for joining the program.
00:34Italy was seen as key to how today's vote would unfold, and earlier this week the country flipped its position for Mercosur.
00:42Why did it make that change?
00:46Italy has been playing with different divisions on the Mercosur deal for a while,
00:52and after receiving what the government considers acceptable assurances from the European Commission
00:59in terms not just of the safeguard measures of the deal, but also in terms of the next European multi-alternational financial framework
01:07and the availability of more flexibility in some common agricultural policy funding,
01:14decided that it had more to gain from siding in favor of the deal rather than opposing it.
01:20And overall, the deal is massively favorable to Italy because it has a particularly complementary trade with Mercosur country,
01:28so it has a lot to gain and very little to lose.
01:31Yeah, and a very different perspective from here in France.
01:34Farmers protesting yesterday, again today.
01:37How would you explain this deal to the French farmers that say their livelihoods are going to be undercut
01:42by these cheaper products from South America, which face less strict regulation?
01:47Should they be worried, or would they also stand to benefit from this?
01:52I think it depends on the farmers we're talking about.
01:55If you're a competitive farmer that produces something that has an important geographical indication or quality,
02:01and you're looking for external export market, you're going to benefit significantly from the agreement.
02:07You would have more markets available where your denominations would be protective.
02:12On the other hand, if you're a farmer that only produce normal standard goods for the European market,
02:18you're already not very competitive, you're facing already difficulties from other European producers,
02:25then you might lose out from this agreement.
02:28But it's only a tiny part of the farming community in Europe,
02:33and especially one that was not very competitive even before.
02:35So it's very hard to imagine that the Mercosur deal,
02:39considering that the quantities with the quotas that would be allowed with no tariffs are extremely small,
02:45could be the death blow to farmers.
02:49They would be struggling already,
02:51and it's very unlikely that the deal would be a matter of life and death.
02:54But it's probably easier to protest against this trade deal
02:58than against overall structural issues of agricultural competitiveness in France or in other European countries.
03:05One of the common refrains we've heard from activists or protesters here
03:09is that this deal was 25 years in the making,
03:12that the text that binds it is two and a half decades old,
03:16and that it's outdated,
03:18that it should have been brought up to speed to consider environmental impact,
03:24to consider all these different ways that people live their lives today
03:27compared to how we did at the start of the century.
03:29Is that a fair criticism?
03:30It's not really that fair in the sense that one could argue that you cannot debate a trade deal for 26 years.
03:42It's too much.
03:43You should have signed it long earlier to provide some certitude in the trade relationship.
03:48On the other hand,
03:49those 26 years also meant that there have been updated
03:53and different things were included at a later stage into the agreement.
03:58But most importantly,
03:59you cannot ask to change the deal after it had been achieved at the end of 2024.
04:05So if it took you 25 years, 26 years to negotiate it,
04:09then you cannot ask to change it.
04:10And in terms of environmental causes,
04:13there have been several that have been included in the agreements.
04:16And also it paves the way for a further harmonization in the future of regulations
04:23between the EU and Mercosur.
04:25And let me stress this,
04:26all final products from Mercosur country that enter the European Union
04:31would have to be perfectly compliant with European rules for finished products.
04:36So we're not really opening the door to uncontrolled and dangerous goods.
04:41Yes, there would probably be some cheaper competition coming in,
04:45but that's what happens when you sign a trade agreement.
04:47And Europe would be the cheaper and higher quality competition
04:51in basically all of Mercosur country's industrial goods.
04:56And that's something that probably isn't stressed enough on the European side.
05:00And so for consumers here in Europe,
05:02how long till they would see perhaps a positive effect from this trade agreement?
05:10I would take years overall,
05:13because the one thing that happens with most trade deals,
05:17you tend to have very localized and precise negative effects
05:22while you have widely distributed smaller positive effects.
05:26So it would be difficult to feel it immediately.
05:29Firms exporting to Mercosur countries
05:31or firms that have been struggling
05:33after Donald Trump imposed tariffs on goods entering the U.S.
05:37would find the more immediate benefits from the Mercosur deal.
05:41In terms of consumers,
05:43it would probably be something perceptible
05:46at the end of the decades
05:48or two or three years down the road.
05:52All right, Alberto.
05:53Thank you very much.
05:54Alberto Rizzi joining us there.
