Farm organisation leaders from around the EU, including president of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) Francie Gorman, will meet the incoming European Commissioner for Agriculture on the EU-Mercosur Trade Agreement.
The farm leaders, as part of the EU farm organisation Copa Cogeca, will hold a series of “high-level discussions” in Brussels tomorrow (Thursday, November 28) on the trade deal, which is looking more and more likely to ratified in the very near future.
Gorman said that, as part of the meeting with new Commissioner for Agriculture Christophe Hansen, he will be raising “very real concerns” about the impact of the deal for the Irish beef and poultry sectors if passed.
The deal would provide for an additional 99,000t of beef from the South American Mercosur trading bloc to enter the EU tariff free.
The farmer representatives are also set to meet with officials from the European Commission’s Directorate-General (DG) for Trade, the DG responsible for the trade deal, to set out the dangers of the deal for agriculture.
Separately, the IFA delegation will meet with its counterparts from the largest French farm organisation, the FNSEA, to discuss their mutual opposition to the trade deal.
Opposition to the EU-Mercosur Trade Agreement has been most pronounced in Ireland and France.
These meetings come after earlier meetings this week in which IFA livestock chairperson Declan Hanrahan, and his predecessor and current chairperson of the Copa Beef Working Group Brendan Golden, met with beef farmers across Europe, where “unified opposition” to this deal was highlighted.
That meeting also discussed options on how to intensify a campaign by EU farmers to have the deal rejected.
Commenting on this series of meetings, Gorman said: “The impact of a negative trade deal would be felt beyond the farmgate, with processing and upstream value hit by any decisions to allow more imports.
“The commission’s plans appear to be to ignore the devastating impact of agricultural production in Brazil, while at the same time imposing greater regulations on farmers here. The next government cannot allow this to happen. They must stand up for Irish farmers,” he added.
The IFA president claimed that any commitment from Irish political parties to support the beef sector here “would be meaningless” if this deal is allowed to go through.
“The Irish beef sector accounted for €2.7 billion of our food exports last year. With 100,000 beef farmers, it is the largest farming sector in the country and has an economic impact in every parish in rural Ireland.
“Allowing Mercosur to pass would have serious consequences for this sector and for the poultry sector as it would totally undermine our Bord Bia quality assured product,” Gorman said.
“We secured commitments from the three main party leaders at the recent meeting of our National Council. Farmers need the three main leaders to be united on this. We need a steadfast and unified opposition to Mercosur,” he added.
He called on whoever is Taoiseach in the next government to “act quickly and say no to Mercosur”.