Food System

EU-Mercosur, citizens against politics

December 6, 2024

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Civil society – through 404 organizations representing farmers, workers, citizens and consumers from Latin America and the European Union – expresses a single voice against the toxic EU-Mercosur agreement that Ursula von der Leyen is about to define. (1)

Table of Contents

1) EU-Mercosur, 25 years of negotiations in the dark

The negotiations for the trade and political agreement between the EU and Mercosur countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) have been carried out for over 25 years without any information and participation of the 733 million people who risk suffering the impacts, as has already been denounced. (2)

The European mediator has already censured the serious lack of transparency of the European executive, as has also been seen. And the current European Commission is now re-evaluating the possibility of circumventing the possible vetoes of some member states through the ‘splitting’ of the agreement into several parts. (3)

2) A toxic agreement for people and the planet

‘This deal will exacerbate the unequal exchange between the South and the North of the world, perpetuating neocolonial trade structures. It promotes destructive agricultural models displacing small farmers and indigenous communities, while driving EU exports of toxic agrochemicals, including those banned in the EU. These unsustainable farming practices, including intensive livestock farming, threaten food sovereignty and animal welfare in both regions.

Workers in Mercosur countries will suffer job losses and worsening conditions. Women will lose even more in this sense, while they are also the most affected by the privatization of public services promoted through free trade agreements. (4) Studies show that the agreement poses serious economic risks, further aggravating the inequalities and hindering sustainable development and (re)industrialization in Mercosur countries’. (5)

3) Deforestation and social injustices

Fires and deforestation in the service of agro-industrial oligarchies continue undisturbed in all Mercosur countries, with an irreversible impact on millions of hectares of land. The devastation of primary forests – Amazon, Gran Chaco, Pantalal – and other biodiversity reserves such as the Cerrado is combined with the robbery of land and the concentration of large estates, as always to the detriment of local communities. (6)

Social injustice and poverty have then reached unprecedented levels, in Argentina, under the presidency of Javier Milei. To the point that today 60% of Argentine children suffer from hunger, in addition to suffering from the deprivation of essential services and rights to health and education. (7) Protests for social justice, moreover, are repressed with violence. In disinterest, ça va sans dire, of the European negotiators.

4) Geopolitics and neocolonialism

‘Politicians who promote this agreement to counter China’s influence in the Mercosur region are trapped in a free trade ideology that prioritizes corporate profits over people and the planet.

Strengthening ties, while undeniably necessary, requires solidarity, equality, cooperation, sustainability and democracy, not the deepening of commercial asymmetries .

This applies not only to EU-Mercosur, but also to the ‘modernization‘ of the free trade agreements between the EU and Mexico and the EU and Chile, which are both equally problematic’. (8)

5) Farmers and breeders protest

Farmers of the Confédération paysanne, on December 5, 2024, blocked the inauguration of the European Fair at the Grand Palais in Paris to ‘denounce the profiteers of market deregulation’.

‘The free trade agreement is a stab in the back for French, European and South American farmers, as it causes prices to collapse’, said spokeswoman Laurence Marandola.

Indeed, the European Union aims to export its heavy industry products to Mercosur countries, offering in exchange an exemption from customs duties on 83% of agricultural imports from Mercosur countries. (9)

6) Meat (Latin American) in exchange for cars (European)

The EU-Mercosur agreement also provides that Mercosur countries can export to the European Union, under a tax exemption regime:

99,000 tons of beef, in addition to the 25,000 already granted
180,000 tons of poultry
25,000 tons of pork, with a single tax of €83/t

In addition to 180, 000 t of sugar to be refined and 450,000 t of ethanol, always duty-free.

7) Food security and democracy

A recent audit by the European Commission has highlighted the impossibility of controlling whether Brazilian cattle are treated with growth hormones (estradiol 17β) banned in the EU since 1981 because they are carcinogenic. (10)

Europe on the other hand continues to export pesticides and other agrotoxics– whose use is banned on the Old Continent – which return there in the form of residues in imported foods and feed. (11)

GMO wheat is the final frontier that the financial oligarchies and the politicians in their service will foist on the citizens of the old and new worlds, along with this toxic agreement, regardless of our will. (12) Which democracy?

Dario Dongo

Footnotes

(1) The EU-Mercosur trade deal must be stopped now. Friends of Earth. 27.11.24 https://tinyurl.com/msyvhmyx

(2) Dario Dongo. EU-Mercosur free trade, deep darkness. FT (Food Times). 19.11.24

(3) ETJC. 209 Civil Society Organizations Say: EU trade deals must not undermine democratic rights. 24.11.22 https://tinyurl.com/zndv8sxj

(4) Impactos of the Mercosur – European Union agreement on women. Plataforma América Latina Mejor Sin TL (Buenos Aires, Argentina). November 2023 https://tinyurl.com/ysjrdztd

(5) Özlem Ömer, Jeronim Capaldo. How the EU-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement will Accelerate Economic Stagnation, Inequality and Vulnerability. Global Development policy center. 7.6.21 https://tinyurl.com/ye26fnjh

(6) Fires in Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay: the names of the agronegocio. Nodal. 20.9.24 https://tinyurl.com/msykbk7j

(7) The population in Argentina rose to 52,9% in the first half of 2024, an increase of 11 points from when Javier Milei took over. BBC World Service. 27.9.24 https://tinyurl.com/43t8xjyu

(8) Dario Dongo. Green light for EU agreements with Chile and Kenya. FT (Food Times). February 27, 2024

(9) Sophie Chapelle. The European Commission concluded the agreement with Mercosur: the reasons for agriculture. Enough! 6.12.24 https://tinyurl.com/4hj53suk

(10) Sofia Sanchez Manzanaro. Brazil: exports of female cattle are suspended after an audit by the EU. Euractiv. 29.10.24 https://tinyurl.com/mwc94pr6

(11) Marta Strinati. Stop EU export of banned pesticides returning to our plates. FT (Food Times). February 27, 2023

(12) Dario Dongo. GMO HB4 wheat conquers the world. FT (Food Times). December 29, 2023