Carlo Fidanza, agriculture coordinator for the ECR Group in the European Parliament, has described the EU-Mercosur trade agreement negotiated today by the European Commission and the Mercosur Common Market Council as "unbalanced and detrimental to European agriculture".

“There is no reason for us to give the green light yet. Improvements are urgently needed in a number of key areas. For example, there are not enough guarantees that European veterinary and phytosanitary controls will be respected and that our health and quality standards will be fulfilled for products entering our internal market”, Fidanza said.

“Furthermore, the Commission’s commitments to intervene with adequate compensation for European producers in the event of market disruption are too meagre”, he added.

According to Fidanza, given the burdens that farmers are already facing as a result of crises and the Green Deal, more consideration needs to be given to the European agricultural sector:

“In this period of profound global geopolitical instability, we would all like to see more fruitful relations with Latin America, starting with the Mercosur countries. But this must not happen to the detriment of the European agricultural sector, which has already been damaged for too many years by suicidal European decisions,” he concluded.