{"id":23482,"date":"2026-01-05T11:36:59","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T10:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anafric.es\/the-eu-postpones-the-signing-of-the-mercosur-agreement-amid-pressure-from-the-european-agricultural-sector\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T11:36:59","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T10:36:59","slug":"the-eu-postpones-the-signing-of-the-mercosur-agreement-amid-pressure-from-the-european-agricultural-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anafric.es\/en\/the-eu-postpones-the-signing-of-the-mercosur-agreement-amid-pressure-from-the-european-agricultural-sector\/","title":{"rendered":"The EU postpones the signing of the Mercosur agreement amid pressure from the European agricultural sector"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"303\" data-end=\"665\">The <strong data-start=\"2855\" data-end=\"2873\">European Union<\/strong> has decided to <strong data-start=\"2889\" data-end=\"2956\">postpone the signing of the association agreement with Mercosur<\/strong>, which was scheduled to take place this Saturday in Brazil, following <strong data-start=\"3027\" data-end=\"3101\">objections raised by several Member States, including France and Italy<\/strong>, in a context marked by <strong data-start=\"3126\" data-end=\"3167\">protests from the agricultural sector<\/strong> and internal political pressure.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"303\" data-end=\"665\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-23476 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/anafric.es\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/La-UE-pospone-la-firma-del-acuerdo-con-Mercosur-ante-la-presion-del-sector-agrario-europeo.jpg\" alt=\"La UE pospone la firma del acuerdo con Mercosur ante la presi\u00f3n del sector agrario europeo\" width=\"1000\" height=\"666\" srcset=\"https:\/\/anafric.es\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/La-UE-pospone-la-firma-del-acuerdo-con-Mercosur-ante-la-presion-del-sector-agrario-europeo.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/anafric.es\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/La-UE-pospone-la-firma-del-acuerdo-con-Mercosur-ante-la-presion-del-sector-agrario-europeo-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/anafric.es\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/La-UE-pospone-la-firma-del-acuerdo-con-Mercosur-ante-la-presion-del-sector-agrario-europeo-768x511.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"3202\" data-end=\"3559\">The delay, now pushed back at least until January, once again highlights the <strong data-start=\"3279\" data-end=\"3324\">concerns of the European livestock sector<\/strong>, particularly in sensitive areas such as the <strong data-start=\"3370\" data-end=\"3387\">bovine sector<\/strong>, regarding a potential increase in imports from Mercosur countries with <strong data-start=\"3460\" data-end=\"3558\">lower production costs and less demanding regulatory requirements than those applied in the EU<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"3561\" data-end=\"4005\">The agreement, negotiated for <strong data-start=\"3591\" data-end=\"3608\">over 26 years<\/strong> by the European Commission and Mercosur countries, was due to be signed in the Brazilian city of Foz de Iguaz\u00fa during the bloc\u2019s summit. The President of the European Commission, <strong data-start=\"3788\" data-end=\"3829\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Ursula von der Leyen<\/span><\/span><\/strong>, was expected to attend the meeting to finalise the deal. However, EU Member States decided not to submit the text to a prior vote, preventing the agreement from being signed.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"4007\" data-end=\"4425\">From the perspective of the livestock sector \u2014 and especially the <strong data-start=\"4073\" data-end=\"4101\">European bovine industry<\/strong> \u2014 one of the main points of contention is the <strong data-start=\"4148\" data-end=\"4211\">lack of sufficient safeguards to prevent market distortions<\/strong>. Although the EU had negotiated certain <strong data-start=\"4252\" data-end=\"4273\">safeguard clauses<\/strong> to protect European producers from a sudden increase in imports or lower-priced products, these measures are widely seen as insufficient by the sector.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"4427\" data-end=\"4816\">In addition, the European Parliament sought to include a so-called <strong data-start=\"4494\" data-end=\"4513\">\u201cmirror clause\u201d<\/strong>, which would have required Mercosur exports to comply with the <strong data-start=\"4577\" data-end=\"4638\">same sanitary, environmental and animal welfare standards<\/strong> applicable within the EU. This demand, considered essential by the bovine sector, was ultimately excluded due to legal incompatibilities with the original negotiation framework.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"4818\" data-end=\"5154\">The postponement of the agreement creates a new period of uncertainty, but also provides an <strong data-start=\"4910\" data-end=\"4975\">opportunity to reopen the debate on ensuring fair competition<\/strong>, safeguarding the viability of European livestock farms and ensuring that international trade agreements fully reflect the <strong data-start=\"5099\" data-end=\"5153\">regulatory standards faced by the EU bovine sector<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The European Union has decided to postpone the signing of the association agreement with Mercosur, which was scheduled to take [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23478,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1097,1096,1111],"tags":[3066],"class_list":["post-23482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anafric-en","category-sector-en","category-vacuno-en","tag-mercosur-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anafric.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anafric.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anafric.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anafric.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anafric.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anafric.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anafric.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anafric.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anafric.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anafric.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}