{"id":52604,"date":"2026-05-01T15:28:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T15:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/52604\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T15:28:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T15:28:13","slug":"the-eu-mercosur-deal-takes-effect-but-the-fight-over-it-goes-on-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/52604\/","title":{"rendered":"The EU-Mercosur deal takes effect \u2014\u00a0but the fight over it goes on \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What\u2019s changing?<\/p>\n<p>The agreement will gradually eliminate duties on more than 90 percent of EU exports, including on cars, pharmaceuticals, wine and spirits, and olive oil. Some so-called non-tariff barriers \u2014\u00a0such as on labeling \u2014 will be removed. Public procurement markets will open up, allowing EU companies to bid for government contracts.<\/p>\n<p>The Commission estimates that EU exports to the Mercosur region will grow by 39 percent through 2040, to \u20ac50 billion. \u201cThe benefits are real and visible as of now,\u201d von der Leyen <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/vonderleyen\/status\/2050120658399506734\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">said in a post on X<\/a>. \u201cTariffs start falling. Companies are gaining access to new markets. Investors have the predictability they need.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But gains will be slower to materialize on some products. \u201cIn most cases, the tariff reductions will be phased in over a period of 10 to 15 years. The economic effects will therefore become apparent primarily in the medium to long term,\u201d said Oliver Richtberg, head of foreign trade at Germany\u2019s VDMA engineering federation.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2255992433-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8368529\"  \/>If either the Court of Justice or lawmakers ultimately reject the agreement, the European Commission would have to go back to the drawing board. | Luis Robayo\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>But not for French Champagne, which, along with other sparkling wines, is already duty-free, down from a previous 20 percent tariff.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, <a href=\"https:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/commission\/presscorner\/api\/files\/attachment\/882168\/EU-Mercosur%20Trade%20Agreement%20-%20Agri%20-%202025.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Mercosur beef exports to Europe<\/a> will be subject to a lower, 7.5 percent tariff on the first 99,000 metric tons annually. Anything above that will still be charged 40 percent. The EU produces that amount of beef <a href=\"https:\/\/agridata.ec.europa.eu\/extensions\/DataPortal\/beef.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">in five days<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe first installment of the agriculture quotas will happen on both sides and hardly anyone will notice. Certainly, there will be no visible effect in the EU beef market,\u201d said Rupert Schlegelmilch, a former Commission official who negotiated the agreement. Provisional application will be a fairly quiet process, he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What\u2019s changing? The agreement will gradually eliminate duties on more than 90 percent of EU exports, including on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137],"tags":[333,428,6605,8868,27815,8412,5397,250,14866,1502,1664,2424,1065,242,2056,245,249,1857,14937,16,8869,1430,5821,1432,2061,32265,5459,7933,388,248,15533,7662,3601,1745,7934,403,8923,1643,12624],"class_list":{"0":"post-52604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ursula-von-der-leyen","8":"tag-agriculture","9":"tag-antonio-costa","10":"tag-argentina","11":"tag-beef","12":"tag-bernd-lange","13":"tag-brazil","14":"tag-cars","15":"tag-china","16":"tag-colombia","17":"tag-companies","18":"tag-courts","19":"tag-dumping-duties","20":"tag-elections","21":"tag-emmanuel-macron","22":"tag-exports","23":"tag-france","24":"tag-germany","25":"tag-history","26":"tag-labeling","27":"tag-markets","28":"tag-maros-sefcovic","29":"tag-meps","30":"tag-mercosur","31":"tag-negotiations","32":"tag-oil","33":"tag-olive-oil","34":"tag-panama","35":"tag-paraguay","36":"tag-parliament","37":"tag-poland","38":"tag-poultry","39":"tag-public-procurement","40":"tag-tariffs","41":"tag-trade","42":"tag-trade-agreements","43":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","44":"tag-uruguay","45":"tag-venezuela","46":"tag-wine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}