{"id":416358,"date":"2025-01-16T14:28:03","date_gmt":"2025-01-16T13:28:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/01\/16\/ue-mercosur-sefcovic-agricoltori\/"},"modified":"2025-01-16T15:34:37","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T14:34:37","slug":"sefcovic-reassures-farmers-on-eu-mercosur-deal-agriculture-will-not-pay-for-other-sectors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/01\/16\/sefcovic-reassures-farmers-on-eu-mercosur-deal-agriculture-will-not-pay-for-other-sectors\/","title":{"rendered":"\u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d reassures farmers on EU-Mercosur deal: ‘Agriculture will not pay for other sectors’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – The European Commission once again reassures European farmers who are on\u00a0the warpath over the signing of the\u00a0free trade\u00a0agreement<\/a>\u00a0with Mercosur countries. An agreement that Brussels says should also be evaluated for “its geopolitical importance” not only from an economic perspective. However,\u00a0EU Trade Commissioner Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d reiterated, “agriculture will not pay for other sectors.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Slovenian commissioner, who was a key figure on Dec. 6<\/a> along with Ursula von der Leyen in the Montevideo summit\u00a0that sealed the end of negotiations after a quarter century, discussed the terms of the agreement today (Jan. 16) with members of the European Parliament’s International Trade (INTA) committee. Jan. 30, members of the Agriculture Committee will expect\u00a0him for a similar debate.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
Maros Sefcovic Uruguay’s foreign minister\u00a0Omar Paganini in Montevideo, 5\/12\/24. (Photo by EITAN ABRAMOVICH \/ AFP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Responding to the Chamber’s doubts\u00a0about the benefits the mutual opening of markets will bring to the European agri-business supply chain, \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d countered\u00a0with\u00a0numbers featuring\u00a0several zeros. Companies on the old continent will have access to a market of “280 million consumers<\/strong> with growing purchasing power.” Thanks to the gradual dismantling of tariffs, they will “save over 4 billion a year.”<\/strong> The simplification of customs procedures, \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d insisted, will be “crucial,” especially for the “26 thousand small and medium-sized enterprises that export in the\u00a0Mercosur area.”<\/p>\n

The EU will “lift” the\u00a0current tariffs\u00a0of 10 percent on olive oil, 14 percent on malt, 35 percent on wine, and 20 percent on chocolate. At the same time, it will protect Europe’s 349 geographical indications<\/strong>. “There will be no products that look like champagne or anything like that,” \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d promised.<\/p>\n

The question, however, is whether Brussels has considered the hypothetical scenario of an invasion of the European market for beef, poultry, and\u00a0agricultural products (sugar, in particular) from Mercosur. Goods that Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay produce in large quantities, with milder health and environmental constraints and thus lower production costs, could undercut\u00a0local competitors once they enter EU territory.<\/p>\n

“I am fully aware that EU farmers are concerned,” \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d made clear, assuring that the European Commission “has taken these concerns very seriously.” Compared with the terms reached in 2019, Brussels claims\u00a0it has negotiated “clear limits to Mercosur’s request to open the\u00a0beef, poultry, and sugar market<\/strong>.” It has established “clear and well-calibrated” tariff quotas and a “gradual” market opening.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Yet, as far as beef is concerned, Brussels estimates that the massive entry of products from the four Mercosur countries may trigger a price decrease of between 2 and 2.5 percent and a “potential decrease” in production of between 0.5 and 1 percent<\/strong>. “I don’t deny\u00a0it, and I don’t underestimate it at all,” \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d said. That is why Brussels has included in the agreement several\u00a0safeguards – including bilateral ones – that could be activated to protect specific agricultural sectors. In addition, it is ready to set up a reserve of “at least one billion euros” to be drawn on to mitigate\u00a0any losses in the European supply chain. In any case, “we are quite convinced that this will not happen,” \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The EU trade commissioner has factored in a scenario of a possible decline in EU beef prices and production. However, Brussels is ready to mitigate this with a reserve of at least \u20ac1 billion<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7527,"featured_media":416339,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25709],"tags":[25855,30196,25987,29611],"class_list":["post-416358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agrifood-en","tag-agriculture-en","tag-commissione-inta-en","tag-maros-sefcovicat","tag-ue-mercosur-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416358"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416370,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416358\/revisions\/416370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}