BRUSSELS, Dec 12 (Reuters) – European Union countries are set to vote early next week to determine whether the bloc should sign a contentious trade agreement with South American bloc Mercosur by the end of the year, Denmark, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU, said on Friday.
The EU and the bloc of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay reached agreement last December to create the EU’s largest ever trade accord, some 25 years after negotiations were launched. However, France and other EU countries have expressed reservations, fearing increased imports would hurt their farmers.
The European Commission, which negotiated the agreement, is seeking approval from EU members so that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen can travel to Brazil to sign it.
“In the planning of the Danish presidency the intention is to have the vote on the Mercosur agreement next week to enable the Commission president to sign the agreement in Brazil on December 20. That has not changed,” a Danish presidency official said on Friday.
The outcome is uncertain. Approval requires a qualified majority of 15 EU members representing 65% of the EU population. Germany, Spain and the Nordic countries are clear supporters. However, Poland has said it will oppose the agreement, while the French and Italian positions are unclear. If those three, plus one more country, vote against or abstain, the deal would be rejected.
The EU executive presented the accord for approval in September and sought to soften opposition by adding a mechanism that would allow the suspension of Mercosur preferential access for some farm products, such as beef, poultry and sugar.
Supporters of the agreement, which would be the largest in terms of tariff reductions that the EU has struck, say it is an essential part of the EU’s diversification strategy of seeking new markets and greater access to critical minerals amid geopolitical disruption in the form of U.S. tariffs and Chinese curbs on exports of chips and rare earths.
Some EU diplomats said France had sought to delay a vote until January and believe it is now make-or-break time for the agreement.
“If we don’t sign Mercosur in the next days it will be dead,” one EU diplomat said. “If we can’t agree on Mercosur, we don’t need to talk about European sovereignty anymore. We will make ourselves geopolitically irrelevant”.
(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop and Andrew Gray; Editing by Paul Simao)
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