This would have been a terrible moment in history to mess something like this up right before the finish line.
InCloud44 on
How about France and Poland? Do you think now they will want even more to exit EU?
LauMei27 on
W
Chester_roaster on
Should have done it before Christmas but finally
Big_Combination9890 on
GOOD! Holy shit it would have been terrible if we allowed a bunch of people on tractors to topple this a meter before the finish line!
ace_lw on
Finally, now we can eat lower quality foods so that Germany can save it’s automobile industry.
Thank God for that
MethyleneBlueEnjoyer on
Farmcels in shambles.
No-Significance5659 on
Why is this being celebrated on reddit? I feel like I am missing something.
OkKnowledge2064 on
inb4 revolution in france
Willy757 on
Honestly, my only sense about this is: anyone who claims to know exatly what will happen is just spewing BS. This deal might be 25 years old, but the context we find ourselfs in is very novel and very diffrent from even 10 years ago.
Free trade seems to legitimately be one of the most complicated issues in modern politics. Affecting, positively or negatively diffrent groups of people in diffrent countries. There will be winners and losers. It will strengten the continent in some way and weaken it in others.
It falls to the gouverments of the EU and Sounth America to gently reigh in the winners and compensate the losers. They also need to provide backups plans for the eventual distruption of trade or the fall of strategic industries. And bring some kind of ballance between the countries who win more and the ones that lose.
But overall, the diplomatic value of this deal seems to be worth it. Some people can argue however much they want that sacrificing national industries for the sake of the EU was not worth it. But the EU is invaluable in just keeping us all a bit safer. So if this trade deal can also keep us a bit more clumped together, then the work for countering it’s problems might be worth it.
Wooden_Grocery_2482 on
Defence – dependent
Energy – dependent
Industry – outsourced
Media – dominated by foreign unreliable power
Food – only self sufficient sector remaining, and now that’s on its way out too.
Hard to be optimistic about anything nowadays. Ottoman Empire used to be called the sick man of Europe, now Europe itself is the sick dying man.
mrlinkwii on
what a very shit deal
DeSchwanzVanMierlo on
In the distance I can hear the French farmers making their way to the 7th arrondissement.
BenButton123 on
Endless talk about Britain and chlorinated chicken on this sub and yet people are cheering EU countries importing hormone laced Brazilian beef?
AconitumUrsinum on
For the near future, I see a lot of angry farmers in their too big and highly subsidized tractors in the capitals, wasting a lot of highly subsidized diesel.
bidingmytime121 on
Very good news
PauperGames on
Free trade is good trade 👍
Ice_Tower6811 on
Is it done or does it have to go through the parliament?
Be3Al2Si6O18-Cr on
Ill be monitoring the shelves of my supermarket closely
RassyM on
Finally. Breaking the deadlock of Mercosur is the single most tangible low hanging fruit boost to the EU economy in years. It’s time we stopped shooting ourselves in the foot all the time and started focusing on growth and making new allies.
rocketstopya on
finally EU is a player again
Nuclear-Jester on
The „Washington is acting batshit insane right now, we better cooperate with each other“ Club
This isn’t an insult btw. Good thing the EU is trying to find other partners besides the US
Stylish_Agent on
Rip EU farmers
MajesticKnob on
A great win for Car lobbyists and hormone loving beef eaters. EU can’t get anything right lately. Enjoy your shit beef lads 👍
ciketa3 on
Would rather die before eating the sht they produce
OkKnowledge2064 on
>Tariff-free/quota-free access:
>Coffee and seven types of South American fruits (avocado, lemon, lime, melon, watermelon, table grapes, and >apples) will enter the European market tariff- and quota-free
>Vegetable oils will see immediate tariff elimination
>Tariffs on soya beans and animal fats will be reduced, and tariffs on animal hides will be removed
>Products with quotas:
>Beef: 99,000 tonnes with a 7.5% tariff, phased in over five years. 55% fresh/chilled meat, 45% frozen
>Poultry: 180,000 tonnes, duty-free, phased in over five years
>Pork: 25,000 tonnes, phased in over five years, with a tariff of €83 per tonne
>Sugar: 180,000 tonnes of raw cane sugar for refining will be allowed duty-free under an existing quota. A new >duty-free quota of 10,000 tonnes was agreed for Paraguay only
>Rice: 60,000 tonnes duty-free, phased in over five years
>Corn: One million tonnes, phased in over five years, tariff-free
>Ethanol: 450,000 tonnes for industrial use, duty-free. For fuel use, 200,000 tonnes with phased tariff reductions
>Cheese: 30,000 tonnes with declining tariffs over 10 years, excluding mozzarella
>Eggs: 3,000 tonnes with zero tariffs
I will be honest guys, this doesnt seem even remotely enough to do anything to the european food security. These fears seem crazy overblown
mnlx on
This was strategically vital for Europe at this point. I don’t want to hear any *but muh chicken*.
Karlsefni1 on
Finally. We need our economy to be stronger if we don’t want to weaken our position in front of the US and China
QARSTAR on
This is disappointing.
From a farming family in Ireland and all these comments are disgusting.
rick_gsp on
Good common sense has won. Those crying and complaining in 10 years will be thanking us South Americans for this deal
OwnerOfABouncyBall on
Finally!!
You will always fimd issues with any trade deal. In the end we need new new trade partners, since US went crazy.
toma-tes on
Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t get why is this celebrated.
Aren’t EU farmers subject to more strict quality regulations than Mercosur counterparts, leading to imported goods being cheaper than what’s produced in EU?
BenderRodriguez14 on
How well does beef and agricultural produce from there comply/not comply with EU regulations?
Original_HD on
i feel divided on this matter… i do feel bad for those farmers that kept us fed for so many years… most of them will get in trouble , they simply cant compete with South American prices. Its good for us , the consumers.
Canard_De_Bagdad on
And in a couple of years everyone will be squeaking „the French were right!“. Once again. Guys come on, by that point you should have realized we frenchies aren’t genius, but that when it comes to strategic autonomy we have a reliable radar.
Don’t get me wrong, I salute free trade and international friendship. But if you think the Mercosur agreement is any of those things, you’ve probably been ingesting too much oligarchs-owned medias propaganda. This deal will benefit traders and supermarkets, not you. And certainly not the workers (we’re not merely talking about a couple of farmers here). Let’s not even talk about the consumers: shittier shit for less bucks, hurrah, what a glorious victory for public health.
In terms of free trade, allowing *locally forbidden practices* (in terms of working rights, pesticides, etc) to be imported freely isn’t „free trade“, it’s pure sabotage. Especially if we add ecological concerns into the mix (you know, that tiny issue with the world burning). It’s blackmailing an entire sector: „align yourself on foreign malpractice and quasi-slave work, or die“.
Be honest, you all. If it was Trump proposing us such a „deal“, you’d be screaming. You would immediately acknowledge this is an attack against European sovereignty, strategic autonomy, consumer’s rights, our ability to invest into greener practices, and so on. But here magically you’re cheering? If that’s the case then I’m sorry but it makes you useful idiots for interests going against your own.
As I said, in a couple of year it’ll be „damn the French were right!“. It doesn’t please me. I won’t take any national pride into that. Because it will be way too late for us Europeans to do anything else than salvage what little part of that mess we can, at an incredibly increased cost.
Skeng_in_Suit on
That’s how you get a new wave of EU resentment in France, well done
Eisbaer811 on
we didn’t need our own agricultural industry anyway /s
EU companies for simple and cheap goods will get priced out. Sales of complex items to the Americas will do well at first, until they can make all that stuff themselves for half the pric
combocookie on
Some good news, finally.
Sneaky_Squirreel on
I’m starting to dislike farmer more and more. The most unhinged political movements are always coming from them, like that one farmer protest in Poland during Ukrainian grain drama where our farmers were chanting and showing signs of leaving the EU and hoping Putin takes Poland over. All while they live exclusively off of EU farming subsidies driving in their new 1.5 mil euro green tractor with a deer logo. Mercosur deal puts quotas and limits on things like a beef, only like 1-5% of EU total consumption allowed to be imported to EU, basically almost no change to prices will happen but farmers will still keep on whining.
Zdun1992 on
Germany economy is saved and European Farmers are destroyed
1983_BOK on
You people are acting as if we just gave them unrestricted, unregulated access to our food market.
Meanwhile they have to follow the same quality rules to import here, and what they can export to EU is under heavy quotas.
Curio2314 on
Everybody debating around farmers and autonomy here and no comment on how it mean encouraging more pollution (for transport), deforestation and wage exploitation for things we can totally produce locally is wild to me. But this is r/europe(an liberals) after all.
Darkone539 on
>BRUSSELS — A qualified majority of EU member countries on Friday approved the bloc’s long-awaited trade deal with the South American Mercosur bloc, four EU diplomats said.
>France, Poland, Austria, Ireland and Hungary expressed their opposition while Belgium abstained. Italy voted in favor, after forcing a delay last month.
>EU capitals now have until 5 p.m. on Friday to lodge any objections and formalize the vote. This so-called written procedure gives political backing to the informal approval delivered by the Brussels-based ambassadors
Can’t wait for the next headline to show France has blocked it for further talks.
dat_9600gt_user on
**Latin America trade accord wins the required qualified majority, even as France, Poland, Austria, Ireland and Hungary express their opposition.**
BRUSSELS — A qualified majority of EU member countries on Friday approved the bloc’s long-awaited trade deal with the South American Mercosur bloc, four EU diplomats said.
France, Poland, Austria, Ireland and Hungary expressed their opposition while Belgium abstained. Italy voted in favor, after forcing a delay last month.
EU capitals now have until 5 p.m. on Friday to lodge any objections and formalize the vote. This so-called written procedure gives political backing to the informal approval delivered by the Brussels-based ambassadors.
Additional farm market safeguards that would kick in if there is a surge in imports from Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay also won the approval of EU ambassadors, the diplomats said, on condition of anonymity.
The EU-Mercosur deal is set to create the world’s largest free trade area, covering some 700 million people. From Brussels‘ perspective, the agreement is a major geopolitical win in light of China’s rising share in trade and influence in Latin America.
As U.S. President Donald Trump doubles down on tariffing the world, the treaty also comes at a time when both Europe and countries including Brazil are looking for more predictability. European sectors that stand to win from a reduction of tariffs include automotive, aviation, machine building and agricultural exports like wine and cheese.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is set to travel to Paraguay next week to sign the agreement.
Commission spokesperson Olof Gill did not confirm von der Leyen’s travel plans in a press briefing Friday. “Right now, we are focused on the procedures happening at the Council [of the EU]. We will deal with next steps once those are complete,” he said.
After the deal is signed by von der Leyen and her Mercosur counterparts, the text would be voted on by the European Parliament. Some sections of the deal that go beyond trade policy will also need to be voted on in the EU’s national parliaments.
The EU-Mercosur deal has been in the works for 25 years and has gone through tortured negotiations. In 2025, the EU tweaked the agreement to carve out billions of euros in support for farmers who fear imports from the South American market.
*This story has been updated.*
J-96788-EU on
Only 25 years? That was quick.
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45 Kommentare
Thank goodness.
This would have been a terrible moment in history to mess something like this up right before the finish line.
How about France and Poland? Do you think now they will want even more to exit EU?
W
Should have done it before Christmas but finally
GOOD! Holy shit it would have been terrible if we allowed a bunch of people on tractors to topple this a meter before the finish line!
Finally, now we can eat lower quality foods so that Germany can save it’s automobile industry.
Thank God for that
Farmcels in shambles.
Why is this being celebrated on reddit? I feel like I am missing something.
inb4 revolution in france
Honestly, my only sense about this is: anyone who claims to know exatly what will happen is just spewing BS. This deal might be 25 years old, but the context we find ourselfs in is very novel and very diffrent from even 10 years ago.
Free trade seems to legitimately be one of the most complicated issues in modern politics. Affecting, positively or negatively diffrent groups of people in diffrent countries. There will be winners and losers. It will strengten the continent in some way and weaken it in others.
It falls to the gouverments of the EU and Sounth America to gently reigh in the winners and compensate the losers. They also need to provide backups plans for the eventual distruption of trade or the fall of strategic industries. And bring some kind of ballance between the countries who win more and the ones that lose.
But overall, the diplomatic value of this deal seems to be worth it. Some people can argue however much they want that sacrificing national industries for the sake of the EU was not worth it. But the EU is invaluable in just keeping us all a bit safer. So if this trade deal can also keep us a bit more clumped together, then the work for countering it’s problems might be worth it.
Defence – dependent
Energy – dependent
Industry – outsourced
Media – dominated by foreign unreliable power
Food – only self sufficient sector remaining, and now that’s on its way out too.
Hard to be optimistic about anything nowadays. Ottoman Empire used to be called the sick man of Europe, now Europe itself is the sick dying man.
what a very shit deal
In the distance I can hear the French farmers making their way to the 7th arrondissement.
Endless talk about Britain and chlorinated chicken on this sub and yet people are cheering EU countries importing hormone laced Brazilian beef?
For the near future, I see a lot of angry farmers in their too big and highly subsidized tractors in the capitals, wasting a lot of highly subsidized diesel.
Very good news
Free trade is good trade 👍
Is it done or does it have to go through the parliament?
Ill be monitoring the shelves of my supermarket closely
Finally. Breaking the deadlock of Mercosur is the single most tangible low hanging fruit boost to the EU economy in years. It’s time we stopped shooting ourselves in the foot all the time and started focusing on growth and making new allies.
finally EU is a player again
The „Washington is acting batshit insane right now, we better cooperate with each other“ Club
This isn’t an insult btw. Good thing the EU is trying to find other partners besides the US
Rip EU farmers
A great win for Car lobbyists and hormone loving beef eaters. EU can’t get anything right lately. Enjoy your shit beef lads 👍
Would rather die before eating the sht they produce
>Tariff-free/quota-free access:
>Coffee and seven types of South American fruits (avocado, lemon, lime, melon, watermelon, table grapes, and >apples) will enter the European market tariff- and quota-free
>Vegetable oils will see immediate tariff elimination
>Tariffs on soya beans and animal fats will be reduced, and tariffs on animal hides will be removed
>Products with quotas:
>Beef: 99,000 tonnes with a 7.5% tariff, phased in over five years. 55% fresh/chilled meat, 45% frozen
>Poultry: 180,000 tonnes, duty-free, phased in over five years
>Pork: 25,000 tonnes, phased in over five years, with a tariff of €83 per tonne
>Sugar: 180,000 tonnes of raw cane sugar for refining will be allowed duty-free under an existing quota. A new >duty-free quota of 10,000 tonnes was agreed for Paraguay only
>Rice: 60,000 tonnes duty-free, phased in over five years
>Corn: One million tonnes, phased in over five years, tariff-free
>Ethanol: 450,000 tonnes for industrial use, duty-free. For fuel use, 200,000 tonnes with phased tariff reductions
>Cheese: 30,000 tonnes with declining tariffs over 10 years, excluding mozzarella
>Eggs: 3,000 tonnes with zero tariffs
I will be honest guys, this doesnt seem even remotely enough to do anything to the european food security. These fears seem crazy overblown
This was strategically vital for Europe at this point. I don’t want to hear any *but muh chicken*.
Finally. We need our economy to be stronger if we don’t want to weaken our position in front of the US and China
This is disappointing.
From a farming family in Ireland and all these comments are disgusting.
Good common sense has won. Those crying and complaining in 10 years will be thanking us South Americans for this deal
Finally!!
You will always fimd issues with any trade deal. In the end we need new new trade partners, since US went crazy.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t get why is this celebrated.
Aren’t EU farmers subject to more strict quality regulations than Mercosur counterparts, leading to imported goods being cheaper than what’s produced in EU?
How well does beef and agricultural produce from there comply/not comply with EU regulations?
i feel divided on this matter… i do feel bad for those farmers that kept us fed for so many years… most of them will get in trouble , they simply cant compete with South American prices. Its good for us , the consumers.
And in a couple of years everyone will be squeaking „the French were right!“. Once again. Guys come on, by that point you should have realized we frenchies aren’t genius, but that when it comes to strategic autonomy we have a reliable radar.
Don’t get me wrong, I salute free trade and international friendship. But if you think the Mercosur agreement is any of those things, you’ve probably been ingesting too much oligarchs-owned medias propaganda. This deal will benefit traders and supermarkets, not you. And certainly not the workers (we’re not merely talking about a couple of farmers here). Let’s not even talk about the consumers: shittier shit for less bucks, hurrah, what a glorious victory for public health.
In terms of free trade, allowing *locally forbidden practices* (in terms of working rights, pesticides, etc) to be imported freely isn’t „free trade“, it’s pure sabotage. Especially if we add ecological concerns into the mix (you know, that tiny issue with the world burning). It’s blackmailing an entire sector: „align yourself on foreign malpractice and quasi-slave work, or die“.
Be honest, you all. If it was Trump proposing us such a „deal“, you’d be screaming. You would immediately acknowledge this is an attack against European sovereignty, strategic autonomy, consumer’s rights, our ability to invest into greener practices, and so on. But here magically you’re cheering? If that’s the case then I’m sorry but it makes you useful idiots for interests going against your own.
As I said, in a couple of year it’ll be „damn the French were right!“. It doesn’t please me. I won’t take any national pride into that. Because it will be way too late for us Europeans to do anything else than salvage what little part of that mess we can, at an incredibly increased cost.
That’s how you get a new wave of EU resentment in France, well done
we didn’t need our own agricultural industry anyway /s
EU companies for simple and cheap goods will get priced out. Sales of complex items to the Americas will do well at first, until they can make all that stuff themselves for half the pric
Some good news, finally.
I’m starting to dislike farmer more and more. The most unhinged political movements are always coming from them, like that one farmer protest in Poland during Ukrainian grain drama where our farmers were chanting and showing signs of leaving the EU and hoping Putin takes Poland over. All while they live exclusively off of EU farming subsidies driving in their new 1.5 mil euro green tractor with a deer logo. Mercosur deal puts quotas and limits on things like a beef, only like 1-5% of EU total consumption allowed to be imported to EU, basically almost no change to prices will happen but farmers will still keep on whining.
Germany economy is saved and European Farmers are destroyed
You people are acting as if we just gave them unrestricted, unregulated access to our food market.
Meanwhile they have to follow the same quality rules to import here, and what they can export to EU is under heavy quotas.
Everybody debating around farmers and autonomy here and no comment on how it mean encouraging more pollution (for transport), deforestation and wage exploitation for things we can totally produce locally is wild to me. But this is r/europe(an liberals) after all.
>BRUSSELS — A qualified majority of EU member countries on Friday approved the bloc’s long-awaited trade deal with the South American Mercosur bloc, four EU diplomats said.
>France, Poland, Austria, Ireland and Hungary expressed their opposition while Belgium abstained. Italy voted in favor, after forcing a delay last month.
>EU capitals now have until 5 p.m. on Friday to lodge any objections and formalize the vote. This so-called written procedure gives political backing to the informal approval delivered by the Brussels-based ambassadors
Can’t wait for the next headline to show France has blocked it for further talks.
**Latin America trade accord wins the required qualified majority, even as France, Poland, Austria, Ireland and Hungary express their opposition.**
January 9, 2026 12:09 pm CET
By [Koen Verhelst](https://www.politico.eu/author/koen-verhelst/)
BRUSSELS — A qualified majority of EU member countries on Friday approved the bloc’s long-awaited trade deal with the South American Mercosur bloc, four EU diplomats said.
France, Poland, Austria, Ireland and Hungary expressed their opposition while Belgium abstained. Italy voted in favor, after forcing a delay last month.
EU capitals now have until 5 p.m. on Friday to lodge any objections and formalize the vote. This so-called written procedure gives political backing to the informal approval delivered by the Brussels-based ambassadors.
Additional farm market safeguards that would kick in if there is a surge in imports from Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay also won the approval of EU ambassadors, the diplomats said, on condition of anonymity.
The EU-Mercosur deal is set to create the world’s largest free trade area, covering some 700 million people. From Brussels‘ perspective, the agreement is a major geopolitical win in light of China’s rising share in trade and influence in Latin America.
As U.S. President Donald Trump doubles down on tariffing the world, the treaty also comes at a time when both Europe and countries including Brazil are looking for more predictability. European sectors that stand to win from a reduction of tariffs include automotive, aviation, machine building and agricultural exports like wine and cheese.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is set to travel to Paraguay next week to sign the agreement.
Commission spokesperson Olof Gill did not confirm von der Leyen’s travel plans in a press briefing Friday. “Right now, we are focused on the procedures happening at the Council [of the EU]. We will deal with next steps once those are complete,” he said.
After the deal is signed by von der Leyen and her Mercosur counterparts, the text would be voted on by the European Parliament. Some sections of the deal that go beyond trade policy will also need to be voted on in the EU’s national parliaments.
The EU-Mercosur deal has been in the works for 25 years and has gone through tortured negotiations. In 2025, the EU tweaked the agreement to carve out billions of euros in support for farmers who fear imports from the South American market.
*This story has been updated.*
Only 25 years? That was quick.