The EU’s trade deal with the South American trade bloc Mercosur will enter into force with immediate effect, after the EU Commission confirmed that it would provisionally apply the pact.
Speaking on Friday (27 February), commission president Ursula von der Leyen said that the parliaments in Argentina and Uruguay had now ratified the agreement, which was concluded in January.
“When they are ready, we are ready,” she said.
The ratifications in South America, which are likely to be followed in the coming days in Uruguay and Brazil “show the trust and eagerness of our partners”, she added.
The agreement will now enter into force pending approval by the European Parliament.
However, the announcement was hit by immediate pushback from Paris, one of the longtime sceptics of the deal among EU member states.
“It is a decision that I regret,” French agriculture minister Annie Genevard said, according to AFP.
“It is not in line with the respect that should have been shown for the European Parliament’s decision, ” she added, calling it “very damaging to the functioning of our institutions and, above all, to the spirit of our European institutions.”
However, the news was welcomed in Berlin.
“This is the hour of Europe: With the [commission] provisionally applying the EU-Mercosur FTA companies & people from both continents can finally benefit from more prosperity & growth,” wrote German foreign minister Johann Wadephul on X.
Promise of €4bn a year
EU officials reckon that the agreement, which features tariff and quota-free trade, will save the bloc’s businesses €4bn per year in customs duties alone.
The agreement with Mercosur, the negotiations for which spanned several decades, is arguably the most significant of a series of trade deals that the EU commission has sought to conclude since Donald Trump’s second presidency in the United States heralded the start of transatlantic trade tensions.
“Mercosur is one of the most consequential trade agreements of the first half of this century,” said von der Leyen, adding that it “gives Europe a strategic first mover advantage in a world of sharp competition and short horizons” and “allows our small businesses to access markets and scale that they could only dream of.”
Last month, EU governments gave permission for the commission to provisionally apply the trade deal as soon as the first Mercosur country ratified it.
However, the move will anger many MEPs in the European Parliament, where a majority voted to send the Mercosur deal to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg for a legal opinion on its compatibility with the bloc’s treaties.
‘An absolute democratic scandal’
It was following the parliament’s European Court of Justice (ECJ) referral, widely seen as a delaying tactic by opponents of the Mercosur agreement, that member states urged the commission to provisionally apply the agreement — a move which is allowed by the EU treaties. That would then be confirmed when the parliament ratifies the deal.
Manon Aubry, an MEP with the Left group, which led the campaign to refer Mercosur to the ECJ, described the commission’s move as “an absolute democratic scandal”.
Aubry added that it was a “a grave move that sets a dangerous precedent, showing how far the Commission is willing to go to impose free trade at the expense of people and the planet.”
The European farming lobby has been the most prominent opponent of the Mercosur pact, which it says will pave the way for cheaper imports of beef, soy and other products that will be made using lower environmental and phytosanitary standards.