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EU and Mercosur countries sign landmark free trade deal

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Re: EU and Mercosur countries sign landmark free trade deal

#61

Post by ivan_gammel »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #56
AdrianB1 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What facts are you looking for, real products imported on this agreement and analyzed in a lab? Obviously not, the agreement was just signed. But, I read about examples of substances allowed in the Mercosur countries and forbidden in EU. https://www.collectifstoptafta.org/IMG/pdf/mercosur_et_pesti... , https://euobserver.com/climate/151818

Does the deal actually allow food to be imported into the EU if it does not comply with EU health and safety regulations?

It does not.

Re: EU and Mercosur countries sign landmark free trade deal

#62

Post by pousada »

mikaeluman wrote: post #51

The main issue as I see it is that we need food security in the EU. Especially high quality nutrious dense food like beef. And EU farmers are subject to a ridiculous number of regulations and costs. The thing is, these may very well be good for environmental reasons, but it doesn't work if we just start importing from countries that do the opposite.

What hurts EU farmers the most are the huge supermarket chains which control prices. The rules&regulations thing is an often cited meme but the price war is much more impactful.

In fact we could produce for example in Germany milk in a sustainable and very environmentally friendly way if it would just cost a couple cents more, like 10 cents or even less. But consumers will basically riot if you raise the prices there so the supermarket chains don’t do it and instead put more pressure on the farmers to produce cheaply.

If you read the MERCOSUR agreement then you’ll see there are a ton of protections included against the thing you are afraid of.

Re: EU and Mercosur countries sign landmark free trade deal

#63

Post by lm28469 »

bboozzoo wrote: post #55
lm28469 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing, we sell them our gadgets and in return we get growth hormone beef and other agricultural products which don't even meet 1980s EU regulations, big win indeed God forbid we subsidize food too, it's only like the #1 priority when it comes to sovereignty after all, we should definitely not produce locally and rely on foreign countries for our food autonomy

How come folks seem to focus on beef, while IMO the real stakes are in obtaining access to important minerals. Lithium, nickel, copper, graphite, niobium, etc. are often listed. There's a nice breakdown on EC pages: https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-cou...

Why do we focus on the shit part of the deal? Do I need to explain that really?

Re: EU and Mercosur countries sign landmark free trade deal

#64

Post by mantas »

toyg wrote: post #38
iagooar wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Farming is already incredibly subsidized in the EU As it should be if we don't want to wake up one fine day in the middle of a global war with no food supply because of a naval blockade and have our children starve to death.

Most of Europe has long reached a population density that makes it effectively impossible to achieve self-sufficiency, so this argument is pointless. This is going to be a good agreement if it is policed well enough that Mercosur countries are effectively forced to raise their food-production standards (because accepting imports doesn't automatically mean they can ignore regulations on suitability). Europe gets cheap…

Shipping food across the globe works great along with green deal. Such food quality is also questionable in many ways because transportability must be #1 priority.

As another commenter pointed out, beef is especially interesting. On one hand EU cries about greenhouse gas and how we should eat less meat. On the other hand goes to reduce price and increase production of beef which such moves. Pure hypocrisy.

I wonder if someone will double down on checking how Brazil is protecting its rains forests? Or will it just look the other way while Europeans eat cheap food that was grown in what was rain forest very recently?

Re: EU and Mercosur countries sign landmark free trade deal

#65

Post by petre »

Tade0 wrote: post #50
iagooar wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Farming is already incredibly subsidized in the EU As it should be if we don't want to wake up one fine day in the middle of a global war with no food supply because of a naval blockade and have our children starve to death.

That would happen anyway as the EU is a net importer of fertilizer. Fortunately there's around 800kg per capita worth of food storage in the EU, so should a war break out we're not all immediately dead - just vegetarian after a period of slaughtering all the livestock that can't be fed.

We can always eat bugs that the EU authorized for human consumption. I would at least. Cricket farms are more sustainable than cattle or pig farming. I like to think of them as grass shrimp.

Re: EU and Mercosur countries sign landmark free trade deal

#66

Post by 0dayz »

iagooar wrote: post #12

This is a bad deal for many European countries that still have a strong farming industry, and for Europeans in general too. Once again, Germany has pushed through its interests at the expense of other European nations like Poland. This time even France was against it. What is Germany going to get? A new market for their decaying automobile industry. What is the rest of Europe going to get? Cheap, low quality food shi…

No need to add racism to the argument.

This exact thing is was said about Poland when they joined the EU, the truth was that French/Spanish/German farmers didn't want to give up non specialized farming, and the same argument has been made and was a primary reason why Ukraine is not in the EU.

Plus it's odd that specifically this deal is so bad, but deals with importing Asian grown food via trade deal is fine.

Re: EU and Mercosur countries sign landmark free trade deal

#67

Post by wiether »

bildung wrote: post #30
AdrianB1 wrote: post #19

There is some valid criticism raised by farmers in my country (Romania) related to use of pesticides and other substances that are forbidden in EU, but permitted in Mercosur and products can be imported even with the forbidden substances in it. That sounds pretty bad, consumer protection is the only part that I still like about modern EU.

But is that really true, i.e. were you able to find actual facts supporting this? I'm asking because in Germany there are similar talking points driven by the farmer's associations (actually just the big agro corps, actual small-scale farmers don't have much of a voice in these) and everytime I tried to dig into a particular topic, it didn't seem to be supported by actual facts.

Another partner, but the same issue: https://www.nationalobserver.com/2025/12/03/news/france-cana...

Re: EU and Mercosur countries sign landmark free trade deal

#68

Post by mytailorisrich »

eigenspace wrote: post #57
3ple_alpha wrote: post #45

Removing tariffs on beef specifically is a serious mistake, there's no need to incentivise any more production of that. Other agricultural imports, like soy and coffee beans, are a huge boon to the EU on the other hand. If this results in cheaper coffee, everyone in my country, for one, will be ecstatic.

While I agree that we ideally shouldn't be incentivizing more beef production, the reality is that making a trade agreement (at least the European way) involves a lot of give-and-take, compromises, and concessions. Mercosur countries have a powerful beef industry which they're proud of, and their governments are interested in advancing that industry. Lowered beef tariffs were almost certainly one of their prerequisit…

We have to notice the blatant hypocrisy here: on the one hand we are told that the environment and net zero are top priorities, and on the other hand we are also told that it is great to have beef shipped to us from literally the other side of the world... (Tokyo is nearer to Brussels than Buenos Aires)

Re: EU and Mercosur countries sign landmark free trade deal

#69

Post by mantas »

dlisboa wrote: post #52
iagooar wrote: post #12

This is a bad deal for many European countries that still have a strong farming industry, and for Europeans in general too. Once again, Germany has pushed through its interests at the expense of other European nations like Poland. This time even France was against it. What is Germany going to get? A new market for their decaying automobile industry. What is the rest of Europe going to get? Cheap, low quality food shi…

From a pragmatic perspective it’s just common sense. Europe cannot produce food at prices its population expects. It has no cattle herd to speak of yet consumes lots of beef. It wants for multiple commodities which don’t grow there. And as time goes on there’ll be less and less food production in Europe. And the idea that food products from SA are low quality is a very old and uninformed take. For better or worse SA…

The prices partially were affected by green deal stuff and other home-grown regulations. Maybe regulations should be lowered instead of letting in cheaper produce from locations where such regulations don’t apply?

Re: EU and Mercosur countries sign landmark free trade deal

#70

Post by ivan_gammel »

oulipo2 wrote: post #46
ivan_gammel wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of incentive should not block trade. If we need sufficient production capacity for security reasons, it’s ok to subsidize it, but the product should still compete on the market and surplus can always be donated to UN. There’s enough starving people on this planet.

Right now the current system is totally inefficient, with a lot of food waste, and a lot of ruined landscapes and soil because of pollution and intrants We need on the contrary to produce less globally, but more organically, and to reduce waste and produce locally

It may be inefficient, but protectionism is never a solution and we are not yet in a state where food is abundant and accessible to everyone.
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