EU countries override France to greenlight Mercosur trade deal
A majority of the European Union's 27 nations back the pact at an ambassadors' meeting in Brussels, paving the way for it to be inked in Paraguay next week.
The EU on Friday gave a long-delayed go-ahead to a huge trade deal with the South American bloc Mercosur, championed by business groups but loathed by many European farmers, overriding opposition led by France.
More than 25 years in the making, supporters see the deal as crucial to boost exports, support the continent's ailing economy and foster diplomatic ties at a time of global uncertainty.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz hailed the agreement.
"The approval of the EU-Mercosur Agreement is a milestone in European trade policy and an important signal of our strategic sovereignty and capacity to act," the German leader said.
But the European Commission, which negotiated the text, failed to win over all of the bloc's member states.
NO votes fail to block the deal
Key power France, where politicians across the divide are up in arms against a deal attacked as an assault on the country's influential farming sector, led an ultimately unsuccessful push to sink it.
Ireland, Poland, Hungary and Austria also voted against the accord.
But that was not enough to block it, after Italy, which had demanded and obtained a last-minute delay in December, threw its weight behind the pact.
The deal will create a vast market of more than 700 million people, making it one of the world's largest free trade areas.
Link to Americas
Part of a broader push to diversify trade in the face of US tariffs, it will bring the 27-nation EU closer together with Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay, removing import tariffs on more than 90 percent of products.
This will save EU businesses 4 billion euros ($4.6 billion) worth of duties per year and help exports of vehicles, machinery, wines and spirits to Latin America, according to the EU.
It will also help the bloc reduce its dependency on China for critical raw materials, said Agathe Demarais, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank.
"The conclusion of the EU-Mercosur trade deal is great news for Europe's global geopolitical and economic clout," she said, describing it as one of the "best responses to US tariffs, growing protectionism and trade tensions with China."
Germany, Spain and others were strongly in favour, believing the deal would provide a welcome boost to their industries hampered by Chinese competition and tariffs in the United States.
But France and other critics opposed it over concerns that their farmers would be undercut by a flow of cheaper goods, including meat, sugar, rice, honey and soybeans, from agricultural giant Brazil and its neighbours.
Failure to sign off on the deal could have spelled the end of it: Brazil last month threatened to walk if the EU kicked the can down the road.
Over the past months, the commission has been at pains to reassure farmers and their backers that the pros outweigh the cons.
“It will boost agri-food exports by 50 percent”
It stressed the accord is expected to boost EU agri-food exports to South America by 50 percent, in part by protecting more than 340 iconic European products, from Greek feta to French champagne, from local imitations.
It also laid out plans to set up a 6.3 billion euro crisis fund and safeguards allowing for the suspension of preferential tariffs on agricultural products in case of a damaging surge in imports.
The latter were tightened further at the last minute by member states lowering the threshold for action, in a late concession to Italy.
"It seems to me that the balance that has been created is a sustainable one, and I hope that the agreement will bring benefits in many areas, as I believe it will, and hopefully for everyone," Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told journalists on Friday.
Still, French farmers rolled into Paris on tractors and their Belgian colleagues blocked major roads across the country in a show of anger ahead of the text's approval.
"There is a lot of pain. There is a lot of anger," Judy Peeters, a representative for a Belgian young farmers group, told AFP at a protest on a motorway south of Brussels.
The deal still needs approval from the European Parliament before it can definitively come into force.