EU and Mercosur countries sign landmark free trade deal

Post by Saline9515 » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 1:10 PM UTC

ivan_gammel wrote: post #121

Saline9515 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one controls for the food quality imported in the EU. If you read consumer protection specialized papers, they very often find problematic products. Massive amounts of fake honey from China is being sold in the internal market with absolutely no repercussions. The only way to ensure food safety is to control the production sites, which Mercosur doesn't allow.

>If you read consumer protection specialized papers, they very often find problematic products. If nobody controls it, where all those papers come from?

Post by ivan_gammel » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 1:17 PM UTC

Saline9515 wrote: post #125

ivan_gammel wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European consumer protection authorities control the quality and food is regularly tested, of course. European producers aren’t saints too.

Food safety is ensured by controlling at the production level, with physical inspections. Given the sheer amount of food traded and imported the lab measures are very unreliable and costly. Private consumer protection groups very often find problematic products. Honey is a good example, massive fake honey from China has been being dumped in the EU for the last 20 years, authorities don't care at all and allow it to c…

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 1:32 PM UTC

kledru wrote: post #127

dataviz1000 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently in Brazil. Buenos Aries has NYC, Miami food prices. One of the things that strikes me the most is price of food here and Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. By shipping the food to Europe and United States, it makes it extremely expensive here. After decades of authoritarian control, the food production here has been concentrated into a few extraordinary families. The EU farmers are not the only people ge…

your comment gives impression as if Buenos Aries were in Brazil, so not sure what to make of it...

Post by exceptione » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 1:40 PM UTC

NoboruWataya wrote: post #109

exceptione wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food security is the last concern for Europe. How do you get that idea? > And EU farmers are subject to a ridiculous number of regulations and costs. Almost the whole EU budget is for agriculture subsidies. Countries outside EU have to comply with the same standards. The US could for instance export in bulk to the EU, if they would manage to bring food up to basic standards. It doesn't happen, but is not because the…

> Food security is the last concern for Europe. How do you get that idea? Food security is the first concern for every society, because without food we will all die. The reason almost the whole EU budget (hyperbole, but indeed it is a lot of the EU budget) is spent on agricultural subsidies is precisely to protect our food security.

  > The reason almost the whole EU budget (hyperbole, but indeed 
  > it is a lot of the EU budget) is spent on agricultural 
  > subsidies is precisely to protect our food security.

Post by TiredOfLife » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 1:42 PM UTC

embedding-shape wrote: post #77

onesandofgrain wrote: post #74

Cheaper coffee this must mean for europe.

And it's already pretty cheap, how much cheaper can it get? Usually you'd pay somewhere around 1-1.2 EUR for an espresso, 1.5-2.0 EUR for "fancier" coffees, at least here in Spain (depends a lot on exactly where though).