Representatives of the EU and the South American trading bloc Mercosur signed a historic trade agreement on Saturday. This comes after 26 years of negotiations. The news agency Reuters reports.
The signatures on the agreement were placed in Paraguay, which currently holds the presidency of Mercosur. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, traveled to Paraguay together with the President of the EU, António Costa, precisely to sign the agreement.
According to Reuters, this is the largest trade agreement that the EU has ever concluded with parties outside the union. The agreement opens a market of over 700 million consumers divided between the EU and Mercosur, which consists of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
DI: Good news on top of Trump threat
And it is good news on a day when US President Donald Trump has threatened to raise tariffs on goods from a number of European countries, including Denmark. This is what the CEO of the Confederation of Danish Industry, Lars Sandahl Sørensen, says.
- The EU's response to the US's new tariffs must largely be new trade agreements with the rest of the world. When one door closes, the EU must open a new one.
- An agreement with Vietnam was reached a few years ago, Mercosur is now on the ground, and now I hope that the EU's von der Leyen will very soon have the pen out again and sign a new huge trade agreement with India, he says in a comment.
After signing, the agreement must be approved by the EU Parliament and by the parliaments of the Mercosur member states. However, a spokesman for the European Commission said earlier this week that the agreement could enter into force even before it has been voted through in the European Parliament.
Major disagreement
A qualified majority of EU countries gave the green light to the agreement, which has been disputed internally within the EU, on Friday last week.
It was ultimately Italy that had the decisive vote due to the EU's special rules for what constitutes a qualified majority. Since large EU countries such as France and Poland had previously made it clear that they would vote no to the trade agreement, Italy became decisive. In addition to France and Poland, Austria, Hungary and Ireland voted against the agreement.
At an EU summit in December, Italy's Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, stated that she wanted more time to ensure increased protection for European agriculture.
It was the result of this work that ultimately led Italy to accept the agreement, which the southern European country was otherwise skeptical about.
/ritzau/
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