Ireland to vote against EU-Mercosur trade deal as France also vows no amid farmer backlash
Ireland will vote against the proposed EU-Mercosur trade agreement at a meeting of European Union ambassadors tomorrow, Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Simon Harris said, aligning Dublin with France’s declared opposition as farmer protests intensify.
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Martin said progress had been made on safeguards around imported beef from Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, but the Government lacked sufficient confidence that Irish and EU food standards would be protected.
“We have to be confident that food production standards for Irish and European farmers are not undermined by food production systems that are not as carbon efficient, and that don’t have the same stringent standards,” he said while speaking in Shanghai. “In the round… our sense is that we don’t have confidence that they won’t be undercut… so the Government will be voting no.”
Harris said it cannot be taken for granted that the European Parliament will ratify the agreement when it goes to a vote in the coming weeks, adding that Irish MEPs would push for additional safeguards. He said the Government had engaged intensively and was clear in the Programme for Government that it could not support the deal in its current form.
“While some progress has been made… it is now clear the agreement, even as modified and with additional safeguards, is not adequate enough to address the concerns of Irish farmers or of the Irish agri-food sector,” he said at Government Buildings.
Opposition parties and farm groups quickly weighed in. Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald called the Government’s stance “simply too little, too late,” saying the coalition had multiple opportunities to halt the deal and “utterly failed” to do so. She accused the Government of “panicking when the damage was already done” and described as “cynical” any suggestion that Ireland had been open to supporting the pact.
Irish Farmers’ Association President Francie Gorman welcomed the move. “There’s a clear commitment in the Programme for Government that our Government would oppose the deal,” he said, arguing that proposed EU safeguards “do not give any assurances that Brazilian beef will meet EU standards.” He added that farmers “would have felt let down by any other approach.”
The EU-Mercosur accord, if approved, would create the world’s largest free-trade zone and could boost EU exports to Mercosur countries by up to 39%, with an estimated value of €49 billion to the European economy. But the agreement has faced mounting resistance from member states including Ireland, France, Italy and Poland, amid concerns that cheaper South American imports—particularly beef—could distort EU markets and undercut producers operating under stricter environmental and animal welfare rules.
French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed Paris will also vote against the pact, calling it a “deal from another era” after farmers used tractors to blockade roads in and around the capital. He credited the European Commission for “undeniable progress,” including an “emergency brake” on agricultural imports in the event of market destabilization and reciprocity measures on production conditions for pesticides and animal feed, but said the revisions did not go far enough.
Farmers in France, fearing a surge of lower-cost imports, brought traffic to a standstill before dawn, driving along the Champs-Élysées and gathering around the Arc de Triomphe as police ringed the monument. Dozens of tractors also blocked motorways into Paris ahead of the morning rush hour, causing about 150 kilometers of traffic jams, according to the transport minister. “We are between resentment and despair,” said Stéphane Pelletier of the Coordination Rurale union. “We have a feeling of abandonment, with Mercosur being an example.”
EU ambassadors are expected to discuss the agreement tomorrow, with a European Parliament vote likely to follow in the coming weeks. Despite late-stage revisions and new safeguard proposals, the political arithmetic remains uncertain as governments weigh the promise of expanded trade against mounting domestic pressures over standards, sustainability and the future of European farming.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
