“We must include all 27 heads of state and government of the EU member states, and, on the Mercosur side, all members must also be ready to sign,” said this Sunday, November 17, the president of the European Commission.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said this Sunday, November 17, that “the devil is in the details” when referring to the negotiations on the agreement with Mercosur, which according to her are “in the home stretch” despite the firm opposition of France.
During an interview with the Brazilian news channel GloboNews on the eve of the G20 summit, in which she will participate this Monday and Tuesday in Rio de Janeiro, the leader admitted that convincing all the countries of the two blocs to sign this free trade treaty was “an arduous task”.
“The devil is always in the details,” she insisted. “The final stretch is the most important, but it is also often the most difficult.”
Opposition of France at this stage
This free trade agreement between the EU and the four founding members of Mercosur (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay) has been in the works for more than two decades.
After a “political” agreement sealed in 2019 between the EU and the Mercosur countries, the opposition of several countries, including France, blocked its final adoption, even if countries like Germany and Spain hope that It will be signed by the end of the year.
“I want to reassure all our farmers: we will not give up our food sovereignty. France will not support the EU-Mercosur agreement in its current version,” French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X Sunday, after his meeting in Buenos Aires with his Argentinian counterpart Javier Milei, before going to Rio for the G20 summit.
Strongly mobilized against this agreement, French farmers fear a surge of Latin American meat in Europe and warn of unfair competition from products not subject to the strict environmental and health standards in force in the EU.
