The EU will decide on Friday to provisionally apply the free trade agreement with four South American countries, Mercosur, even though it was put on hold just over a month ago so that the European Court of Justice could assess the agreement. This is reported by the AFP news agency.
The European Court of Justice will assess the agreement to ensure that it is in line with the EU treaties, after a majority in the European Parliament requested it on January 21.
- The Commission will now proceed with provisional application, said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels on Friday, recalling that the member states have given the EU the authority to do so.
The agreement still needs to be approved by the European Parliament to be finally adopted, but von der Leyen's statement means that the trade agreement between the EU, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Paraguay will in practice enter into force.
- Provisional application is - by its nature - temporary. The agreement can only fully enter into force once the European Parliament has given its consent, said Ursula von der Leyen.
Agreement 25 years in the making
The reason the agreement can be implemented is that the European Council back in January gave the EU Commission the option to provisionally apply the agreement when it was first approved by one of the Mercosur countries.
The provisional implementation in the EU comes in the wake of Argentina and Uruguay voting in favour of the Mercosur agreement on Thursday. Therefore, only Paraguay and Brazil are left to vote through the agreement on the South American side of the agreement.
In Brazil, the Brazilian lower house voted through the agreement with a large majority on Wednesday. After the lower house has voted through the agreement, the Brazilian Senate must then approve the agreement, because Brazil has a bicameral system.
According to the news agency AFP, Paraguay has also taken several steps towards approving the agreement.
The agreement between the EU and the four countries from South America has been in the works for over 25 years. The four South American countries and the EU together account for 30 percent of the world's GDP and have more than 700 million consumers.
The agreement is intended to strengthen the EU's exports of cars, machinery, wine and spirits to South America. The other way is that South America's exports of meat, sugar, rice, honey and soybeans to Europe are also intended to increase.
/ritzau/
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