{"id":462115,"date":"2026-08-11T10:17:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T08:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/08\/11\/sefcovic-da-accordo-con-mercosur-prezzi-piu-bassi-in-negozio-i-costi-lungo-la-filiera-non-dipendono-dallintesa\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T11:07:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T09:07:33","slug":"sefcovic-mercosur-agreement-to-lead-to-lower-store-prices-supply-chain-costs-unrelated-to-the-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/08\/11\/sefcovic-mercosur-agreement-to-lead-to-lower-store-prices-supply-chain-costs-unrelated-to-the-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Sefcovic: Mercosur agreement to lead to lower store prices; supply-chain costs unrelated to the deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 The free trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur is not designed to harm consumers. On the contrary, thanks to the removal of tariffs on products imported from Latin America, costs for European citizens are expected to fall. The Commissioner for Trade, Maros Sefcovic<\/strong>, has once again defended the trade agreement signed at the end of 2024<\/a> with the South American countries involved (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay), and indeed goes on the counter-offensive: any price increase, should it occur, would depend solely on the operators and the intermediary fees they set.<\/p>\n

 \u201cThe Commission remains confident that, overall, trade agreements, including the EU-Mercosur Interim Trade Agreement (ITA), will translate to lower consumer prices in the
\nstores,<\/strong>\u201d Sefcovic began, responding to a parliamentary question<\/a> from the sovereigntist benches. Then came the pointed remark: \u201cThe Commission has not specifically quantified how gains resulting from the agreement
\nwould be distributed along the supply chain.” This is because “price transmission along the agri-food chain
\ndepends on several factors, including market structure<\/strong>, costs and contractual relations.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 Mercosur, therefore, was designed to make bilateral trade more cost-effective, and Sefcovic is effectively turning the spotlight on operators within the supply chain. Should any distortions arise, it will be possible to determine this shortly, given that the EU\u2013Mercosur agreement came into force provisionally<\/a> on 1 May. In any case, \u201cThe Commission does not agree with the statement that the ITA is undermining European
\nproducers,\u201d the Trade Commissioner said, rejecting further accusations and criticisms regarding an agreement that a part of the European Parliament never liked<\/a>.<\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

“The degree of tariff liberalisation for EU sensitive agricultural products is limited
\nto a very small volume<\/strong> in order not to expose vulnerable producers to excessive competition.” Therefore, Sefcovic points out, \u201cthe impact for those specific goods is by construction expected to be very limited.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Trade Commissioner has once again come out in defence of the free trade agreement with South American countries, shifting any blame onto operators and workers in the sector<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":462105,"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","show_comment_section":"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":[25709,25707],"tags":[26279,25987,26632,33394],"class_list":["post-462115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agrifood-en","category-world-politics","tag-trade-en","tag-maros-sefcovicat","tag-mercosur-en","tag-ue"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462115","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\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":462116,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462115\/revisions\/462116"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}