EU Lawmakers 'Test' Mercosur Deal, Or Stall It for Corporate Agriculture
📰 THE STORY: The European Parliament has voted to send the landmark trade agreement with South American Mercosur nations (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay) to the European Court of Justice for judicial review. This move, Bloomberg suggests, risks further delays to a deal that has been under negotiation for a quarter-century, citing environmental and human rights concerns as common objections.
🔍 WHAT THEY'RE NOT TELLING YOU: Historical Context: This 'legal review' is merely the latest in a long line of tactics used by powerful blocs to control trade flows and protect their own industries. Recall the 1990s battles over banana imports between the EU and the US-backed Chiquita, where the EU's preferential treatment for former colonial territories was challenged. Or the ongoing
protectionist subsidies for European agriculture under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which routinely undermine competitive imports from developing nations. The Mercosur deal, if ratified, would open EU markets to cheaper South American agricultural products, a direct threat to powerful European farming lobbies. Double Standard: While EU lawmakers cite environmental and human rights
concerns, they rarely apply the same rigorous scrutiny to their own internal trade agreements or to deals with nations that serve their strategic interests, regardless of those nations' environmental or human rights records. For instance, the EU continues significant trade with nations whose resource extraction practices are highly destructive or whose labor laws are notoriously lax, if it