This is a subscriber-only article
The EU umbrella farming organisation COPA-COGECA, which includes the IFA, has written to European Commissioner Cecilia Malmström to oppose concessions to South American countries as a trade deal with the Mercosur bloc edges closer.
"We are sending out a red alert," Copa-Cogeca's beef chair Jean-Pierre Fleury told the Irish Farmers Journal.
According to Fleury, the government of Uruguay is eager to convene a ministerial-level meeting between Europe and Mercosur to clinch a deal as soon as it assumes the presidency of the bloc on 18 June – assuming a 10-day negotiation session starting on 4 June lifts the remaining stumbling blocks to a an agreement.
Fleury said that many issues remained unresolved between the two sides, including on agricultural products such as cheese, champagne and geographical indications. However, a breakthrough on cars last week has removed the main obstacle to a deal.
Accepting this offer is out of the question
This would pave the way for the EU's latest offer of 99,000t of additional Brazilian and other South American beef imports into Europe to go ahead. "We totally refuse this," Fleury said. "Accepting this offer is out of the question, as with any higher offer using subterfuges" such as juggling existing so-called Hilton quotas to "give Brazil tariff concessions on what it already ships."
Should the two blocs agree on volumes and tariffs, the battle would move onto the field of food safety. After MEPs travelled to Brazil recently, Fleury said: "The European Parliament is clear: there is a breach of traceability at Brazilian abattoirs."
He welcomed ongoing efforts by MEPs to present their findings to high-ranking European Commission officials.
Equivalent standards 'a lie'
"Politicians have been assuring citizens and farmers that the same standards are guaranteed on imported and European meat – this is false, this is a lie," Fleury said.
In his view, EU policy on trade and food safety is closely linked, as illustrated by ongoing negotiations on a new animal medicine regulation. "The European Commission has introduced a clause saying that antibiotics used as growth promoters would be banned under the condition that this is compatible with the World Trade Organisation (WTO)," he said.
By contrast, MEPs want the regulation to ban the drugs outright, without regard for trade implications. "This would block imports from those countries, who all use antibiotics as growth promoters," Fleury said.
WTO threat
He warned that Brazil has its own way of leveraging power in the negotiations, as its Minister for Agriculture Blairo Maggi has been threatening legal action before the WTO against EU restrictions on Brazilian poultry imports. "We understand this is to put pressure on the negotiations" for a trade deal, Fleury said.
SHARING OPTIONS: