{"id":3474,"date":"2026-02-07T16:08:42","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T16:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/3474\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T16:08:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T16:08:42","slug":"brussels-lines-up-farm-funding-concessions-to-get-mercosur-deal-over-the-line-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/3474\/","title":{"rendered":"Brussels lines up farm funding concessions to get Mercosur deal over the line \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Under the EU\u2019s voting rules, a so-called qualified majority \u2014\u00a0of 15 out of the bloc\u2019s 27 member countries representing 65 percent of its population \u2014\u00a0would be needed to back the deal that has been in the works for a quarter century<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Italy, with its large population, effectively holds the casting vote<\/a>. If the Commission can offer reassurances on some money for farmers under the EU\u2019s next seven-year budget, which runs from 2028 to 2034, that would help soften the impact of a proposed one-fifth reduction in the Common Agricultural Policy, under which the bloc distributes subsidies to farmers.<\/p>\n

The new concessions may not win over France and Poland, the main opponents of the accord with Mercosur \u2014\u00a0which groups Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. But, without Italy, they and their allies would lack the votes to block the deal on Friday.<\/p>\n

EU farm ministers have meanwhile been invited to Brussels on Wednesday<\/a> for what has been billed as a stocktaking meeting, following anti-Mercosur protests by European farmers in December and ahead of Friday\u2019s vote. Trade Commissioner Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d, Agriculture and Food Commissioner Christophe Hansen and Health and Animal Welfare Commissioner Oliv\u00e9r V\u00e1rhelyi will host the session alongside Maria Panayiotou, the agriculture minister for Cyprus, which currently holds the Council presidency.<\/p>\n

If the vote goes through, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen would finally be free to fly to Paraguay as early as next week to sign the deal, which has been under negotiation for over a quarter of a century and would create a free-trade area of more than 700 million people and abolish duties on 90 percent of EU exports.<\/p>\n

\"\"If the vote goes through, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen would finally be free to fly to Paraguay as early as next week to sign the deal. | Olivier Hoslet\/EPA<\/p>\n

POLITICO has reached out to the European Commission for comment. Earlier on Monday, chief spokesperson Paula Pinho said: \u201cWe are on the right track to envisage a signing of the agreement and we do hope that will take place quite soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Italian government did not immediately respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n

This story has been updated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Under the EU\u2019s voting rules, a so-called qualified majority \u2014\u00a0of 15 out of the bloc\u2019s 27 member countries…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[104],"tags":[2818,3284,211,3285,210,3651,3652,1529,3035,234,3653,159,3287,3654,3288,182,3655,240,1888,3290],"class_list":["post-3474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brussels","tag-agriculture","tag-argentina","tag-belgium","tag-brazil","tag-brussels","tag-budget","tag-dumping-duties","tag-exports","tag-farmers","tag-france","tag-giorgia-meloni","tag-italy","tag-mercosur","tag-negotiations","tag-paraguay","tag-poland","tag-produce","tag-trade","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","tag-uruguay"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}