Von der Leyen flies to Uruguay Mercosur summit amid French political t

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has landed in Latin America to finalise the Mercosur agreement whilst Europe’s key opponent against the deal suffers government collapse.

“Touchdown in Latin America, the finish line of the EU-Mercosur agreement is in sight,” von der Leyen posted on Twitter on Thursday, adding: “Let’s work, let’s cross it. We have the chance to create a market of 700 million people. The largest trade and investment partnership the world has ever seen. Both regions will benefit.”

The response from Paris was swift. A statement from the Elysee said the French president had spoken to Ursula von der Leyen telling her the agreement is “unacceptable in its current state”. 

France will continue “relentlessly” to defend its “agricultural sovereignty”, the statement continued.

France is fiercely opposed to the agreement, which aims to create a free trade area between the Mercosur countries – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay –  and the EU, but with its attention elsewhere, von der Leyen seems keen to press ahead to unblock negotiations which have been going on for almost two decades.

A deal over Mercosur was reached in 2019, but several EU member states blocked it over environmental and agricultural concerns as the EU would commit to opening its markets with lower tariffs for quotas of goods such as beef, sugar and poultry coming from South America.

“Final political compromises will be discussed starting tomorrow,” a Commission spokesperson said on Thursday, confirming that trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič will also be in the Uruguayan capital Montevideo, where the Mercosur countries are gathering for two days.

In the last stretch of the negotiations, the Europeans were pushing for the introduction of environmental standards in the agreement as well as a commitment of the Mercosur countries to anti-deforestation.

Under pressure from its farmers, Paris has been opposing finalisation of the agreement for many months, while the Commission, pushed by Germany and Spain, has set itself the target of concluding an agreement by the end of the year.

“The European Commission has exclusive competence to negotiate trade agreements,” the Commission spokesperson said on Thursday, adding: “It does so on the basis of a mandate received by the member states including France.”

Earlier this week German socialist MEP Bernd Lange, chair of the trade committee at the European Parliament, said that the “emotional situation in France” presented “a problem” for those seeking to finalise the negotiations.

The French political turmoil will not affect national opposition to the deal, which remains overwhelming. Some 484 of 577 lawmakers in the National Assembly voted on 26 November in favour of a government declaration condemning the proposed deal as “unacceptable”. Both far-right and far-left parties which led the no-confidence vote causing the collapse of Michel Barnier’s government on Wednesday, are radically opposed to the deal.

“Whatever happens, we are opposed to any new trade agreement,” an official from the Ministry of Trade in Paris told Euronews a few days ago.

If closed, the deal will have to be adopted by the 27 member states of the European Union. In recent weeks, France has been working hard to convince its partners to join it in a blocking minority to prevent the agreement from being adopted.

Poland has already announced that it will be joining the coalition. Austria, the Netherlands, and Ireland are also being wooed by France. The position of the Italians remains unclear, as its foreign minister Antonio Tajani expressed on Wednesday concern over the situation of Italian farmers while saying too that he supported the deal. A blocking minority would require four member states representing at least 35% of Europe’s population.

In the face of French opposition, 11 EU member states sent a letter in September to Ursula von der Leyen urging the Commission to step up a gear. Supporters of the agreement stressed the urgency of its conclusion at a time when other powers, such as China, “gain an even stronger influence on Latin American markets, both economically and politically.”