Fakt oder Fiktion: Wird die EU aufgrund des Mercosur-Handelsabkommens mit minderwertigen Produkten überschwemmt?

**Farmers from across Europe are protesting in Strasbourg against the Mercosur trade agreement. They believe that Europe is at risk of being flooded with cheap, low-quality agricultural products from South America, such as beef, chicken, eggs and soya. This would put European farms in a difficult position. But how justified are these fears? VRT NWS investigated three concerns that have repeatedly cropped up during the farmers‘ protests in recent months.**

**Proposition 1**

**The Mercosur countries use plant protection products that are banned in the EU.**

To be clear: Mercosur is a trade agreement that sets (reduced) import tariffs for goods and foodstuffs such as meat and eggs. It does not determine which plant protection products, production methods and veterinary medicines may be used. Other rules and standards apply to this.

The European Union has high standards for food safety, traceability and public health and requires its trading partners to respect those standards.

Nevertheless, farmers in Mercosur countries do indeed use plant protection products that are not authorised in the EU. Take atrazine, for example. This herbicide has been banned in the EU since 2004, but is often used in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay in the cultivation of maize, soya and sugar cane. Traces of atrazine could therefore be present in South American cane sugar.

Nevertheless, these products must comply with our food safety standards when they are imported into the EU. Compared to other countries, Europe applies very low maximum residue limits, i.e. the maximum amount of a particular pesticide that a product may contain. Substances that are banned in the EU must not be found at all in imported food. The bar is set as low as technically possible, at the smallest amount that can be measured.

So if there is more atrazine in cane sugar than is stipulated or than is safe for public health, it may not enter the EU and may not be consumed. There are checks in place to verify this.

**Proposition 2**

**Meat and eggs from Mercosur countries are not sufficiently checked**

A whole network of controls has been rolled out in the European Union.

This is how it works. First, countries that want to trade with each other must agree on the standards they will apply. Companies that want to export must then obtain an export certificate for certain products. And that’s not all. There are also border controls on arrival in the EU and random checks when the products enter our market.

How does it all work? Let’s take the example of a Brazilian steak.

The Brazilian company that wants to export that steak to the EU must first obtain an export licence from the authorities. Those authorities are the Brazilian counterparts of the Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (FASFC) in our country. The meat company will only obtain that licence if it complies with European rules.

To ensure that this part of the process runs smoothly, the EU carries out audits in the Mercosur countries.

Then there is the next step: the first steak from our Brazilian company arrives at the European external border. Like every shipment, that steak will be declared at a border inspection post. That way, we know exactly what is coming in. There, a few samples from the shipment containing our steak are subjected to a whole series of checks.

Their meat is way better than BBB!

1) Just a reminder, again: only a tiny percentage of Mercosur is about agriculture. Mercosur is not an agricultural treaty.

The Mercosur Agreement will be strongly positive for our industries and our economy. It will open up markets for our farma industry, our chemical industry.

And yes for some sectors it is a mixed story. It’s not even a negative for the farming sector: it will be highly beneficial for the potato industry who have been struggling to deal with export barriers in exporting their fries and chips. But yes, wine growers and industrial beef farmers will feel more competition.

FPS Economy makes detailed analyses for each treaty, both during the negotiations, as well as afterwards

[https://economie.fgov.be/nl/themas/handelsbeleid/handelsakkoorden/eu-mercosur-handelsakkoord](https://economie.fgov.be/nl/themas/handelsbeleid/handelsakkoorden/eu-mercosur-handelsakkoord)

2) Mercosur is not a threat to food safety, whenever someone comes up with that argument, you know immidiately they are bullshitting. Because the fact of the matter is: we already eat Argentinian beef. We already drink Chilean wine. And where do you think Alpro gets the soy for their drink?

Mercosur changes the trading barriers and tarrifs, not the food standards. The problems that existed before (animal welfare, deforestation,…) are not enhanced or affected by Mercosur. Now you might regret that, that we didn’t enforce a few EU rules on the South Americans, and we did try, but it didn’t happen. It also didn’t make it worse.

BTW: we had a deforestation legislation proposal, but it died because green parties are no longer in the Parliament. If it is no longer a priority for the EU, why should it be a priority for Brasil?

TIL: farmers are (understandbly to a point) unhappy because they got sacrificed for 95% of the economy and are now basically blackmailing the rest with blatant lies.

Regarding the meat it’s 1% – 2% of the whole European market, so no.

Ah yes because Temu and Shein crap aren’t a thing right now lol??

It’s just the incredibly overrepresented agri lobby with their disproportional influence who hate this trade deal because it could lower their heavily subsidized bottom line.

The attention given to the agricultural lobby here is totally disproportionate to their actual economic contribution. There is also a glaring double standard: farmers are protesting the ‚beef deal‘ on ethical and environmental grounds, yet they have been happily importing tens of millions of tonnes of Mercosur soy to feed their livestock for years. They don’t seem to mind the ‚lower standards‘ when it lowers their input costs—only when it introduces competition for their final product.

We are letting a single sector monopolize the entire debate while ignoring the massive benefits this deal offers to the rest of the European economy. The EU is primarily a service and high-tech manufacturer; reducing tariffs for our machinery, pharmaceuticals, and automotive sectors opens up huge markets. It is frustrating that we might sacrifice growth for the majority of our industries to protect a vocal minority that is already heavily subsidized.

* Agriculture is roughly 1.4% of the EU’s GDP, yet dominates the political conversation.
* The EU imports roughly 30+ million tonnes of soybeans/meal annually, largely from South America, specifically for animal feed.
* The deal removes high tariffs on EU exports like cars (35%), machinery (14-20%), and chemicals (18%).

South American beef is of extremely high quality, and it’s far superior than the tasteless ultra lean garbage we call beef in Belgium. I like to treat myself to a quality ribeye on occasion, and the stuff I buy from Latin America you can cut it with a spoon it’s so tender.