Source: European Parliament
For EU sensitive agricultural sectors, the EU-Mercosur Partnership Agreement sets clear limits as regards providing preferential access to the EU market for beef, poultry and sugar.
For these sectors, trade preferences granted under the agreement are limited through tariff quotas representing only a small fraction of EU consumption.
For instance, the EU quota for beef of 99 000 tons with an inbound reduced tariff rate of 7.5% phased in gradually over five years accounts for about 1.6% of the current EU beef consumption.
On the other hand, the agreement offers a variety of export opportunities for EU farmers thanks to reduced tariffs in Mercosur countries for several EU agri-food products (e.g. wines, spirits, confectionary, dairy and olive oil), as well as the protection of EU Geographical Indications in a market of 280 million consumers.
Furthermore, the agreement contains bilateral safeguards that can be triggered to protect a specific agricultural sector and it has the significant advantage to also covering products not fully liberalised under the Free Trade Agreement.
This would protect our farmers in case increased imports from Mercosur cause, or threaten to cause, serious injury to the relevant EU sectors.
The Commission will monitor agricultural market developments closely after the agreement is implemented. For the unlikely event that the agricultural market situation in the EU is negatively impacted following the implementation of the agreement, the Commission intend to set up a reserve worth at least EUR one billion under the next Multiannual Financial Framework.
This provides an additional safety net and insurance for the sector.