Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue has said the Irish Government will scrutinise the Mercosur trade deal “very closely” before it decides on what stance to take.
Last week, European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen and her counterparts from four Mercosur countries finalised negotiations for the trade deal.
The controversial trade agreement would allow an additional 99,000t of beef enter the EU tariff-free from countries Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia.
The political agreement will open up the EU market to goods from Mercosur, but limits imports from Mercosur of “sensitive agricultural products” such as beef, ethanol, pork, honey, sugar and poultry.
Speaking in Brussels today (Monday December 9), where he is attending the Agriculture and Fisheries Council meeting, Minister McConalogue said the government has not seen the final text yet.
He told EuroParlRadio: “We’ll be scrutinising very closely the outcome of the deal. We haven’t seen the final text yet.
“Safe to say that Ireland has expressed very serious concerns in relation to this in the past and would be very closely now looking at what the final detail of that text is before coming to any conclusion in relation to it,” he said.
McConalogue added that Ireland has been engaged with other member states about the Mercosur trade deal for several years.
“We’ve been to the forefront at European level in relation to insisting that safeguards must be in place and certainly we weren’t in a position to support Mercosur in relation to how it was initially proposed without safeguards that ensure standards are upheld and the same standards were being expected of others,” McConalogue continued.
“So, we’ll continue to engage with other member states now in relation to that, but obviously the approach we take will be very much informed by seeing the detailed text and detailed safeguards that we have been saying must be there.
“We’ll continue to take a very strong line in terms of making sure that the deals that are in place, that Europe is proposing to sign up to… that they must expect the same of other countries that we’re trading with, as they expect of our own farmers,” he concluded.