After 25 years of negotiations and months of mobilisation by Europe's farming community, the trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur provisionally entered into force on 1 May.
Concerns about non-compliance with European rules, particularly by Brazil, repeatedly denounced by farming unions and by many Members of the European Parliament, including Benoît Cassart, now appear to be confirmed. The European Union will indeed suspend, from Thursday 3 September, imports of poultry, honey and beef from Brazil.
Brazil had been removed in May from the European list of countries authorised to export animal-origin products to the EU, in light of European rules on the use of antibiotics in livestock farming.
Regarding poultry and honey, a European audit is currently underway and is due to be completed on Friday. If the results of these checks are conclusive, exports to the single market can resume.
“Finally, the European Commission agrees to fulfil its role as guardian of European rules. These rules cannot apply only to our farmers: they must also be respected by the products entering our market,” said a delighted Benoît Cassart, Member of the European Parliament, member of the Committee on International Trade (INTA) and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (AGRI) in the European Parliament.
The battle for a coherent trade policy based on reciprocity does not end today
“Of course, this suspension of imports, linked in particular to the presence of growth hormones banned in the EU, is a first step in the right direction towards a trade policy that is not based on dumping. However, the Commission's control logic remains too focused on the finished product arriving at European ports and not sufficiently on production methods. I am thinking in particular of the differences in regulations regarding animal welfare, traceability and the use of pesticides, including substances that leave no residue, such as those used on sugar beet,” explains Benoît Cassart.
Positive signals from Australia and India.
Another positive signal comes from Australia, says Benoît Cassart. Opposition parties to the Australian government are indeed threatening to block the agreement with the European Union, arguing that Australia is de facto opening its market to European producers, notably by abolishing customs duties on all EU agricultural exports, while the main Australian agricultural exports to Europe will remain subject to quotas.
“That's a sign that the Commission did a good job in the negotiation! After all the educational and opposition work we did on Mercosur, the European Commission seems to have understood that it was no longer possible to sign free trade agreements in which agriculture was systematically used as a bargaining chip.”
“The agreement with India is one example: the agricultural sector is largely excluded from it. This is the direction we must continue to take: opening markets for our farmers while protecting our standards and guaranteeing genuine reciprocity,” concludes Benoît Cassart.