Mercosur: France seeks to rally blocking minority against trade deal

As negotiators from all sides on the Mercosur deal enter a new round of negotiations this week ahead of a meeting in Uruguay on 5 and 6 December at which there are hopes the deal can be closed, France is stepping up its attempts to rally support from Italy, Austria, Poland and the Netherlands to halt the deal in its tracks.

After 25 years of talks, the EU-Mercosur free trade agreement (FTA) still lacks unanimous support from member states as fears of the agricultural sector's future clash with the strategic needs of the bloc. 

A political agreement was reached on 28 June 2019 to open up trade between the 27 member states of the EU and the four founding members of the South American bloc, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. (Bolivia joined the Southern Common Market, commonly known by its Spanish abbreviation as Mercosur in 2024 so it did not take part in previous negotiations).

The deal is seeking to establish one of the world's biggest free trade zones, encompassing 750 million people and about one-fifth of the global economy. 

France has remained steadfast against the deal but will need to persuade four countries representing 35 % of Europe's population to prevent Mercosur from getting through once an agreement has been signed by the Commission’s negotiators. 

Germany and Spain are leading a coalition of 11 states in favour of the deal and keen to find new trading opportunities, at a time when Donald Trump is threatening the European Union with a trade war and the EU wants to reduce its dependency on Chinese markets.

“The reasons why we have doubts are shared far beyond France,” a French diplomat told Euronews, confident that his country will manage to convince others to oppose the deal.

Agriculture ministries from