Today’s global trading system has its roots in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) of 1947. At the time, the idea was that promoting interdependence and trade cooperation among nations would eliminate the risk of global wars and protect our common humanity from the horrors of mass bombings, genocide, starvation, disease, and conflict. Seventy-five million people lost their lives during the Second World War, which had already begun, even before the First World War, in the form of trade and tariff wars between states.
The trade and tariff war launched by the US administration under President Donald Trump, in violation of World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules and United Nations principles, raised concerns about rising food prices and called into question the already weakened WTO. At the same time, the conclusion of negotiations on the European Union–Mercosur (EUMA) agreement, despite long-standing and strong campaigns by civil society organizations in Brazil and other Mercosur countries, as well as by European groups, has raised concerns about significant setbacks to public policies that protect food sovereignty, as well as environmental protection rights and the rights of peoples.
Even though representatives of the governments of Mercosur countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, and six other associated Latin American states) acknowledged the controversial nature of the agreement—which involves the exchange of their basic agricultural products for high-value industrial goods from the EU, with limited practical benefits for South American countries and negative impacts on the environment and the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest for the expansion of agribusiness—geopolitical and economic factors ultimately led to its approval in principle.
The agreement consists of 20 chapters. In addition to the chapter on trade in goods, it includes, among others, chapters on public procurement, services, sustainable development, intellectual property, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, and rules on products with geographical indications. The final round of negotiations added rules on dispute settlement, including a rebalancing mechanism and cooperation to support multilateral rules on labour and sustainable development, as well as binding conditions for compliance with the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, according to which each member country remains a contracting party as an essential element of the EU–Mercosur treaty.
In Europe, Manon Aubry, a French Member of the European Parliament from the Left (GUE/NGL), argued that the health consequences would be twofold. “Thirty per cent of the pesticides approved in Mercosur countries are banned in the European Union, but they will still enter the European market through their products,” she warned. “Why go to the other side of the world to find what we already know and can produce here in the European Union?” she added, highlighting the adverse effects on European farmers and the climate.
Benoît Cassart, a Belgian Member of the European Parliament (Renew Europe), also called for the creation of “clauses.” “If we now impose the disappearance of a large number of plant protection products in Europe to improve biodiversity, we should not go on to kill biodiversity on the other side of the world by increasing deforestation,” he said.
“We will have access to the largest market in Latin America, with more than 700 million people, from which our businesses will benefit,” said Spanish Social Democrat MEP Javier Moreno Sánchez (S&D). European People’s Party (EPP) MEP Gabriel Mato, head of the European Parliament’s negotiating team for the agreement, welcomed it as positive for consumers, growth, and employment in Europe.
According to the European Union, the objective of the agreement is the reduction of tariffs, mainly on food imports from Latin America and on tariffs applied in Latin America to European exports of automobiles, chemicals, and pharmaceutical products, alongside the protection in those countries of 350 European PDO–PGI products, the promotion of banking services and transport in Latin American countries, and compliance with the terms of the Paris Agreement on climate change.
In recent years, under pressure from civil society, producers’ organisations, and Members of the European Parliament, the European Commission—holding exclusive competence over the EU’s common commercial policy—has implemented stricter policies to address environmental issues in trade and has adopted a series of regulations on phytosanitary controls and the protection of organic farming and products with geographical indications. At the European Council meeting of 18 December 2025, the European Commission committed to issuing, after the final approval of the agreement and by March 2026, specific arrangements for monitoring and controlling compliance with its terms.
In this context, however, it is difficult to consider that bilateral trade agreements concluded outside the WTO framework could offer benefits for climate or socio-environmental policies in a safe manner, as they primarily promote market access, often at any cost. The EU–Mercosur agreement illustrates this reality: despite continuing to promote the narrative that it safeguards environmental clauses and climate commitments, in practice, it implements measures that could divert resources that could otherwise be used for a genuine, fair, ecological, and inclusive transition.
The need to revive multilateral trade agreements and the arbitration of trade disputes through the World Trade Organization, within the framework of the goals, rules, and values of the United Nations, with the aim of jointly reducing tariffs for genuinely free, non-speculative trade through the establishment of common sanitary measures and environmental and social standards for internationally traded goods and services, constitutes the main progressive way forward towards a sustainable planet of equality, without discrimination or exclusion, for all people.
EU–Mercosur trade: facts and figures – Consilium