French President Emmanuel Macron and three other national leaders warned the European Commission that a trade deal with the Latin American trading bloc Mercosur “could ultimately destabilize production and the agricultural sector.”
In a letter to Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, obtained by POLITICO, Macron, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, Belgian PM Charles Michel and Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki wrote: “We would like to express our deep concern on a number of issues concerning the current negotiation with Mercosur including on some sensitive agricultural products.”
As early as next week, EU negotiators could strike a deal with the Mercosur bloc of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, which will give the Latin Americans unprecedented access to Europes agricultural markets in exchange for buying industrial products from the EU such as German cars.
The four heads of government emphasized in the letter, dated June 17, that the tariff-free import quota for beef — expected to be 99,000 tons — “could threaten this fragile sector in our countries” and demanded that the quotas for beef, poultry, pork, sugar and ethanol must not be increased anymore.
Macron and the other leaders also stressed that meat imports from the South American bloc should fit with the EUs climate change objectives. NGOs, scientists and others have
