The long-awaited EU–Mercosur agreement has recently reached a critical political milestone. On 9 January 2026, a qualified majority of EU Member States voted in favour of the trade agreement, despite strong opposition from countries such as France, Poland, Hungary, Austria and Ireland, with Belgium abstaining. This allowed the process to move forward toward formal signature, since under EU law it requires the support of 50% plus one of the Member States—at least 15 countries representing 65% of the EU’s population.
However, a subsequent decision of the European Parliament, taken on 21 January 2026 by a razor-thin majority (334 in favour, 324 against and 11 abstentions), froze the approval process of the EU–Mercosur agreement and referred its text to the Court of Justice of the European Union for an opinion. This referral effectively blocks the ratification of the agreement for a significant period—between 12 and 24 months—since the Court requires time to assess whether the agreement, and in particular its legal basis, is compatible with the EU Treaties.
According to the official documents of the European Commission (EU–Mercosur: Text of the Agreement), the agreement provides for the elimination or drastic reduction of tariffs on 91% of Mercosur exports to the EU, mainly agricultural products, and on 92% of EU exports to Mercosur, which mainly concern industrial goods. This is a structurally asymmetric exchange: Mercosur exports primarily food and raw materials, while Europe exports mainly cars, machinery and chemical products. The largest projected increases in EU exports, according to the 2025 DG Trade impact assessment, concern automobiles, machinery, chemicals and electrical equipment. These gains reflect the reduction of Mercosur’s high tariffs on cars, machinery and chemicals.
Conversely, Mercosur exports to the EU are expected to rise mainly in processed agricultural and fisheries products, vegetable oils and meat, with more negative effects on products with low qualitative differentiation—commodities traded primarily on the basis of price. In agriculture, low- or zero-tariff quotas are foreseen for products sensitive for the EU: beef, poultry, ethanol, as well as significant quantities of sugar, rice, honey, dairy products, olives, fruits and vegetables.
Progressive criticism rightly points out that these imports will enter the EU market at prices European producers struggle to match, since production costs in Mercosur countries are clearly lower due to different and less demanding environmental, social and labour standards.
Indicatively, more than 90% of soybeans produced in Brazil—and a large share of what is exported—is genetically modified, while the expansion of soyabeans cultivation is directly linked to deforestation in the Amazon. At the same time, over 30 active pesticide substances currently used in Brazil have been banned in the EU for health and environmental reasons, and around 50% of the herbicides and insecticides allowed in maize cultivation in Mercosur are not approved in Europe. Yet these products, which do not comply with EU production standards, will be allowed to enter the European market without applying EU rules of good agricultural practice at the production stage, provided they merely meet final residue limits. This in practice undermines the precautionary principle, a cornerstone of European food safety policy.
The so-called sustainability clauses of the agreement offer no real guarantees. They contain no sanctions, no suspension mechanisms and no binding timetables for compliance. As both the European Parliament and COPA-COGECA have stressed, these provisions rely mainly on “dialogue” and transitional measures rather than enforceable commitments.
The result is the creation of unequal conditions of competition: European farmers are rightly required to comply with strict rules in production, processing and marketing regarding the environment, climate, animal welfare and consumer health, while competing with products produced without equivalent obligations, particularly in their production process.
The political divide within the EU is therefore not accidental. Countries with a strong industrial base support the agreement because of the drastic reduction and even elimination of tariffs on cars, machinery and chemical products. By contrast, countries with a strong agri-food sector warn of income losses, job destruction and erosion of their productive base.
The stakes are not only agricultural—they are deeply political. A Europe that fails to use the strong instruments of its Common Commercial Policy and sacrifices agriculture, food security and its environmental and consumer standards in the name of industrial exports undermines its own strategic autonomy in the agri-food sector. Without reciprocity, without guarantees of traceability from production to processing and consumption, without binding sustainability and without protection of public goods, the EU–Mercosur agreement risks becoming a symbol of the disorganisation of both the agri-food sector and Europe’s positive quality consumer standards.
The EU is the region that promotes resilience and sustainability of local communities by linking agri-food policies with biodiversity, culture and sustainable tourism. It has so far adopted the world’s strictest rules on the non-production of GMOs within European territory and on the labelling of imported GMOs, as well as the most stringent pesticide residue limits in food. Yet most countries worldwide—especially those dominated by multinational food corporations—cultivate and export genetically modified products and goods with high chemical residues, including to Europe.
The Mercosur agreement is also a precursor to the EU–US “in-principle” agreement of July 2025, under which the United States raises tariffs on EU exports to the US from an average of about 5% to 15%, while reducing or abolishing tariffs on American agricultural products entering the EU.
What is required is a firm EU orientation toward balanced support for all sectors—agriculture, industry and services—within the framework of the Green Deal, Cohesion Policy and the CAP, combined with binding commitments in regional trade agreements to respect the environmental obligations of the Paris Agreement of 2015 and the European precautionary principle.
Democratic institutions and citizens’ movements must demand the democratic reform and reactivation of the World Trade Organization, toward multilateral agreements among all its 164 members, with mutual commitments to social, environmental and health standards and a public dispute-settlement system—standards that were progressively and creatively developed over more than six decades, from the creation of the GATT in 1947 until the collapse of the Doha Round in 2008, largely due to US responsibility, which undermined the WTO and opened the path to bilateral trade agreements.
If the world continues along today’s dead-end path of spheres of influence, we will inevitably face: the “jungle” of so-called free speculative markets at the expense of producers and consumers, and regional trade conflicts that, following the logic of power, will put even the peaceful coexistence of countries and peoples to the risk (See HERE).