European farmers have called for a day of protest in Brussels on Wednesday, 48 hours before the EU is expected to sign the Mercosur trade deal. The agreement, which has taken two decades to negotiate, will give Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay access to EU markets. It will be good for the German car industry, and disastrous for European farmers, particularly smaller farms.
The president of one farmers’ union in France, Véronique Le Floc’h, has said the deal will likely lead to the ‘death’ of French farming. In an interview at the weekend, Annie Genevard, the minister of agriculture, said: ‘It’s a bad agreement, which will bring a flood of products into our country in direct competition with our producers: 99,000 tonnes of beef, 180,000 tonnes of sugar, and as much poultry.’
The French government has been expressing its opposition to the deal since the country’s farmers descendedon Paris with their tractors at the start of the year.
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