Green risk to trade deal

The European Commission is facing more pressure to drop its planned Mercosur trade deal with South American countries, including Brazil. This has always been controversial for agriculture because of the damage it would cause to the European beef industry. But now environmental damage to the Brazilian rainforests, including deliberate fires, has turned this into a consumer issue.

A number of member states, including France and Ireland, have threatened to veto a deal on environmental grounds. Now a YouGov poll across the EU suggests more than 80% of people want a deal stopped until Brazil delivers a more meaningful response on environmental problems.

Delaying implementation may bring an indirect benefit for agriculture. Meanwhile protests in France by one of the main farm unions and the organisation representing young farmers drew more than 10,000 to protest over the threat from Mercosur and a free trade deal with Canada.

The Polish nominee for EU farm commissioner, Janusz Wojciechowski, is now on course to be approved.

His second hearing before the European parliament’s agriculture committee was more impressive.

He said farmers should be recognised as entrepreneurs and stressed the European Commission should ensure they are competitive producers of food in a global market.

On the environment and climate change he said his approach would be to offer farmers incentives not prohibition. This went down well, as did a commitment to continue the current direction for CAP reform, so avoiding a back to the drawing board threat. He said the CAP must reflect differences between countries but remain a common policy.

The South American deal could hit EU beef and there are fears over management of Brazil’s rainforest.