Spanish farmers protest EU-Mercosur deal
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Euractiv | 17 December 2024
Spanish farmers protest EU-Mercosur deal
by Fernando Heller
Tens of thousands of Spanish farmers protested in Madrid on Monday, expressing their rejection of the EU-Mercosur trade agreement, which they say creates unfair competition between the two trading blocs.
The agreement, which has yet to be ratified by the parliaments on both sides, will weaken the agriculture sector in Europe, said Miguel Padilla, the secretary general of COAG, one of Spain’s main farmer’s organisations.
European farmers will not be able to compete with the Mercosur bloc, consisting of Argentina, Brazil, Uraguay, Paraguay and Bolivia, because production costs in the Latin American bloc are much lower than in the EU, Padilla warned.
“The EU’s (phytosanitary) regulations are the strictest in the world: environmentally, socially and in terms of the raw materials that can be used. There is no such legislation in those (Mercosur) countries”, Padilla told Spanish public radio RNE on Monday.
The protest of some 5000 farmers was organised by COAG and the Agricultural Association of Young Farmers (Asaja), with the support of the Agri-Food Cooperatives, three of Spain’s largest farmers’ associations.
Spanish farmers want same level playing field
“We do not understand how this agreement can be described as positive (by Brussels and the Spanish government) for a sector such as agriculture. To call it positive that four countries (four Mercosur members and Bolivia) are going to compete with us is nonsense,” Padilla added.
The COAG leader, ironically, assured that the agreement with Mercosur was good for Germany “because it is going to sell all its car manufacturing and all its pharmaceutical industry” to the South American bloc.
Meanwhile,Pedro Barato, the Asaja leader, shared Padilla’s negative view while predicting a very bleak outlook for European agriculture if the EU-Mercosur ends up coming into force.
“With these advantages (fewer regulations) that they have there (in the Mercosur bloc), we cannot compete,” said Barato.
Barato denounced the use in Mercosur countries of phytosanitary products and hormones that are restricted or even banned in the EU.
“We feed Europeans, and for this, we need the same conditions as those who come from outside”,Barato stressed.
Monday’s protest against the EU-Mercosur deal was not the first of its kind in Spain.
Spanish farmers launched a wave of protests and demonstrations across the country in late 2023, culminating in a chaotic traffic blockade involving hundreds of tractors in central Madrid last February, EFE reported.
The farmers’ anger does not coincide with the positive view of the government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (PSOE/S&D), one of the main promoters of the agreement signed between the two blocs in Montevideo on 6 December.
In this sense, Spanish Agriculture Minister Luis Planas (PSOE) defended on Monday a deal he says represents a “big opportunity” for both Spain and the European agrifood sector.
Deals with Chile, Morocco and New Zealand also questioned
According to Planas, the EU-Mercosur agreement “offers the greatest protections ever incorporated into a trade pact”, as well as “increasing controls and commitments on environmental and labour issues” for Latin American countries, among other benefits.
But Spanish farmers are not only targeting the Mercosur agreement, on Monday they also expressed their firm opposition to other similar EU trade deals with Chile, Morocco and New Zealand.
The proliferation of free trade agreements between the EU and third countries threatens “the entire (EU) agricultural sector”, Asaja and COAG said in a statement.
According to both organisations, these agreements favour the import of agricultural products below the cost of production - as a bargaining chip for other interests - without complying with EU regulations, which affects European and Spanish farmers with loss of income and thousands of family farms per year.
The support for these agreements by the European Commission and the Spanish government "jeopardises" the objectives of climate change adaptation and mitigation, generational replacement and the achievement of a "fair" income for Spanish producers and their European partners, Asaja and COAG said.