European Coordination Via Campesina | 20 January 2026

EU-Mercosur mobilisations continue as farmers ask MEPs to uphold democracy and vote to seek CJEU opinion on the legality of the agreement

As farmers continue to mobilise against the EU-Mercosur FTA across Europe this week, ECVC and its members are calling on MEPs to take a stand for democracy, legality, and the rule of law in the European Union by voting in favour of a motion to ask the Court of Justice of the European Union to verify the legality of the EU-Mercosur FTA in the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday.

In addition to decentralised mobilisations across France, Belgium, Spain, Greece, Italy, and Germany, an ECVC delegation will travel to Strasbourg to ask MEPs to vote in favour of the motion, which requests an opinion from the CJEU on the compatibility with the EU Treaties of the proposed EU–Mercosur Partnership Agreement (EMPA) and Interim Trade Agreement (ITA).

As it stands, 150 MEPs have supported the motion to challenge several elements of the FTA content, including the legal basis chosen by the European Commission and its decision to split the EU Mercosur agreement into an EU-Mercosur Partnership Agreement (EMPA) and an Interim Trade Agreement (ITA), and the rebalancing compensation mechanisms that Mercosur countries could use to prevent the EU from enforcing measures related to climate and environmental protection, food safety or bans on certain pesticides.

Mobilisations have been intensifying among ECVC members to denounce the EU–Mercosur FTA and other deregulatory regulations that undermine livelihoods, food sovereignty, and climate objectives. Farmers deplore the worrying tendency to instead bow to the pressures and demands of agribusiness and treat European farmers and food systems as collateral damage to the interests and profits of other industries.

The broad and determined opposition from farmers against this FTA reflects the irreplicable damage it will cause in Europe and beyond, as Morgan Ody underlined: “Farmers in Europe and Mercosur countries want to produce food to feed people, based on food sovereignty and solidarity. They will not accept being put in competition with each other so that agribusiness can commodify and industrialise food production at the cost of citizens, farmers and the environment. Food is a human right, and Europe needs resilient and territorial food systems, not increased dependency on other countries for our basic needs.”

Contacts

ECVC:
Morgan Ody - ECVC Coordinating Committee - +33 626 97 76 43 - EN, FR (in Strasbourg Wednesday)
Andoni García Arriola – ECVC Coordination Committee – +34 636451569 – ES, EUS
ECVC Office – press@eurovoia.org
France: Stephane Gallais – La Confédération paysanne - +33 6 81 27 74 56
Belgium:
Philippe Duvivier Président of FUGEA - +32 0491563386 (in Strasbourg today)
Timothée Petel – FUGEA Policy Officer - +32 0499907592 - EN, FR (in Strasbourg today)
Laetitia Fontaine – FUGEA – +32 492 29 72 84 – FR, EN (in Strasbourg today)
Italy:
Antonio Onorati – Member of ARI -+39 340 821 9456
Fabrizio Garbarino – Member of ARI - +39 331 909 2823
Greece: Thomas Moschos – Kastoria Farmers’ Union - +30 697 463 1337
Galicia:
María Ferreiro, farmer SLG Secretaria Xeral - +34 660215346
Xosé María García, SLG Executiva Nacional - +34 629 83 53 51
Brais Álvarez – Secretario de Acción Sindical - +34 679 19 20 00
Spain: Luis Portillo - COAG - +34 663 43 44 27
Germany: Bernd Schmitz – General Secretary of AbL - + 491773565559