French decision to not ratify the Mercosur agreement welcomed

THE president of the ICMSA has welcomed the decision of the French government not to ratify the Mercosur trade agreement until such time as “tangible and objectifiable” guarantees on the protection of the environment and health are received from the four Mercosur nations – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Mr McCormack said that France was absolutely right to insist on the insertion of this condition and he predicted that the inability to supply such a guarantee on the part of the Mercosur nations must mean that the prospects of any agreement were new reduced to zero.

“Not for the first time, we see France having the courage to insist that conditions and standards that are unhesitatingly asked of, and imposed upon, its own farmers are at least met by the farmers of those nations wishing to trade with it.

“Other EU member states now need to publicly endorse the French position and indicate too that they will be unwilling to even consider progressing the draft trade agreement until such time as solid and verifiable guarantees are supplied and verification procedures – to be independently carried out – are agreed,” said Mr McCormack.

The ICMSA president said that he thought that this must represent the end of the road for any possibility of any variety of the draft agreement progressing to ratification. “Mercosur was always logically impossible as well as being potentially environmentally catastrophic.

“The idea that raising the volumes of south American beef that could be imported into the EU would have no implications for forestry-clearance in some of the most already unregulated locations anywhere was – and is – delusional.

“Every time the EU let logic lapse and allowed the draft to move a little closer to reality, areas of forest the size of whole European provinces were burned and cleared, with terminal consequences for bio-diversity and often fatal consequences for indigenous people.

“Our objections were not and are not just about the unfair competition that Mercosur represented. The fact is that anything that increases South American beef production has to be questioned fundamentally. We already know that the current levels of beef production in South Ameica are impacting on global efforts to manage climate change. “The idea that farmers in Ireland – who already produce sustainable beef – and who are being asked to embark on the arduous and expensive transition to lower emissions, could do that at exactly the same time as wholly unregulated South American beef began flooding into our traditional markets was always just contradictory nonsense,” said the ICMSA president.