The Portuguese ministry of foreign affairs has expressed regret that the European Parliament has referred the EU-Mercosur trade agreement to the Court of Justice, considering it a “wrong signal” to South American partners and for “future agreements”.
“Regardless of the legal effects of such a decision, it is the wrong signal to our South American partners, to free trade and to future agreements,” reads a note put out on Wednesday on the social network X of the ministry led by Paulo Rangel.
Also on Wednesday, the minister of agriculture and the sea, José Manuel Fernandes, said that the European Parliament resolution will “delay the agreement” (some say by a year, others as much as two years.
Minister Fernandes stressed that Mercosur is an “opportunity that Portugal cannot miss and that allows farmers to increase their income” (albeit a demonstration outside the European Parliament yesterday would suggest farmers do not agree).
The European Parliament (EP) narrowly approved (by just 10 votes) to send the agreement to the European Court of Justice to verify its compatibility with Community legislation.
The European Parliament will continue its examination of the texts while awaiting the opinion of the Court of Justice, and only after this phase will MEPs be able to decide on their consent to the agreement.
Launched by the political families of the Left (including the Communists, PCP, and the Left Bloc, BE) and the Greens, the motion garnered the necessary votes from various political groups to request analysis of the agreement by the Court of Justice of the European Union.
The European Commission has already said that it regrets the MEPs’ decision – while the President of the European Council, Portugal’s former prime minister António Costa, said the agreement can be applied provisionally, despite being sent to justice, stressing that “there is no reason” to consider that the partnership has died.
However, the chair of the European Parliament’s Trade Committee is adamant that there should be no ‘going forwards’ with the deal before a definitive answer comes back from the Court of Justice.
“As an MEP and chair of the Conference of Committee Chairs, I defend the European Parliament’s right to decide on European affairs. I reject any request for provisional application without the involvement of the European Parliament,” Bernd Lange, chair of the International Trade Committee, said during a press conference on EU-US relations in Strasbourg yesterday.
So, why is it that this ‘great deal’ touted by the European Commission only last week has run into this sudden obstacle? Well… there are a number of reasons: critics have labelled the agreement “an environmental disaster” that will cause deforestation, emissions and pollution. Europe’s farmers are also against it as they believe it represents unfair competition (because they are bound by European rules and regulations that South American farmers don’t have).
The main fears centre on the fact that the agreement will increase exports of products that promote deforestation in Latin America: soybeans, beef and bioethanol, and increase pesticide pollution – by exporting to ‘dangerous products to Latin America and Mercosur countries’ which then produce agricultural goods using these plant protection products, which are then sent back to Europe.
As one of the MEPs querying the agreement has told Euroactiv: “The EU claims to be greener than green, but in reality it is contributing to global ecological chaos.”
To read more on the perceived downsides of this deal, click here.
Source material: LUSA/ Euroactiv
