Farmers deserve Mercosur deal to be judged on safeguards, not slogans
Farmers protesting against the Mercosur deal at Leinster House in 2019. File picture: Andy Gibson.
After 20 years of stop-start negotiations, the EU’s proposed trade deal with the Mercosur bloc — Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay — is moving from theory to reality.
On Wednesday, the European Commission will present the updated text to the College of Commissioners before it is sent to member states and then to the European Parliament for scrutiny. The commission’s aim is to have everything tied down ahead of an EU-Brazil summit this December. In the meantime, MEPs, particularly members of the agriculture and international trade committees — of which I am a member of both — will be scrutinising the deal closely in the days ahead.
This moment comes against a backdrop of deep uncertainty in global trade. The US has imposed wide-ranging 15% tariffs on EU and Irish exports, while protectionism more generally continues to rise worldwide. Faced with the threat of an all-out trade war with our largest trading partner, the commission, in my view, struck the best deal it could.
In response, as well as protecting our relationship with the US, the EU has also sought to lock in new agreements with the rest of the world. Deals with India and Indonesia are being finalised, while another with Mexico is also being published today.
For Ireland, the Mercosur agreement, from what we know already, presents both opportunities and concerns. Our country already enjoys a €1bn trade surplus with Mercosur nations, exporting €1.7bn worth and importing €700m.
More than 269 Irish companies currently export to the region, supporting over 2,300 jobs. Medical devices, pharmaceuticals, machinery, and electrical equipment are already strong performers.
There is a potential for these and other sectors, including spirits and dairy products — today facing tariffs of 20%–35% when exporting to the Mercosur nations — to make even more ground in a region of 260m consumers.
But not every sector sees the Mercosur deal this positively — and for good reason. For beef farmers, in particular, the deal raises serious concerns. This has led to farmers and their representative bodies in countries like Ireland, France, and others becoming vocal opponents of the deal, which would allow an additional 99,000 tonnes of beef imports into Europe phased in over seven years. That comes on top of the 200,000 tonnes already arriving from Mercosur nations.
While this represents just over 1% of total EU beef production, for individual farmers, it is far from abstract and could impact the bottom line. Even putting aside potential impacts on price, it’s also true that environmental and animal welfare regulations already weigh heavily on farmers. The idea that we can ask them to meet the highest EU standards only to be undercut by imports produced under looser rules is unacceptable. Not everything is about the bottom line; it is also about the principle — in this case, reciprocity and fairness in trade.
That is why, since joining the European Parliament last year, I have consistently pressed the commission — including in direct engagements with trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic, agriculture commissioner Christophe Hansen, and their teams — to use the time since the political agreement in December 2024 to strengthen safeguards and respond to the concerns of farmers in Ireland and across the EU.
It is my understanding that the commission has listened and will today reinforce safeguards protecting sensitive European products against any harmful surge in imports from Mercosur with a dedicated legal instrument and will strengthen food import controls by increasing the number of audits and underpinned by controls on the ground.
The commission will also look into potential alignment of production standards on pesticides and animal welfare applicable to imported products. I will now be studying these proposals in detail, line by line, before coming to conclusions and deciding if they are sufficient to earn the trust and support of farmers.
It is also important to see the proposed Mercosur deal in the wider context of the future of Irish and European agriculture. When I meet farmers across the constituency, three priorities come up time and again:
- Securing the extension of the nitrates derogation beyond its scheduled expiry at year’s end;
- Fighting for an increased Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget as part of the EU’s next Multiannual Financial Framework;
- Preventing any Mercosur outcome that would be punitive for farmers.
Many farmers — particularly with beef prices at record highs fuelled by increased exports and new markets — accept that the other two priorities are just as important, if not more so, than the Mercosur deal itself. They also recognise the reality that we cannot expect to secure every demand, particularly with the EU budget under severe strain from post-covid repayments, lingering Brexit fallout and the demand for increased investment in security and defence.
That is why I have said before and repeat now: I will not reject this deal out of hand, nor will I endorse it without proper scrutiny. Those who demand we “just say no” are the same voices who wanted us to spurn engagement with Trump while expecting no adverse consequences, who demanded a bigger CAP budget while ignoring calls from eastern Europe for more funding to defend its borders, and told us we need to prioritise new markets for our businesses while vetoing all trade agreements. That is not a strategy — it is populism, pure and simple.
My commitment to Irish farmers today is clear: I will study the final text carefully, not for headlines or political point-scoring, but to ensure Irish farmers, businesses, and consumers are represented.
If the safeguards are strong, if the deal genuinely strengthens competitiveness in an unstable world, and, separately, if commitments on CAP and the nitrates derogation are forthcoming, then support may be justified.
If not, I will not hesitate to say so.
The EU-Mercosur deal should not be about slogans. It sits in the context of the ongoing challenge to positively shape Ireland and Europe’s place in a changing world. Whether the commission has grasped this since last December will dictate my next moves.
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