EU trade pact
“Mercosur must never become a reality”
The telephone lines between Brussels and Brazil are red hot: Mercosur is being rushed through without any consideration for farmers!
In a letter to the EU Commission that is as urgent as it is rousing, European farmers' associations are now warning of the dramatic consequences of a Mercosur deal. In the letter, they make it unmistakably clear that opening up the market for products from South America would mean the end for many farms. "Our farmers are already struggling with rising costs, stricter regulations and massive price pressure. This agreement would be the death blow," the appeal states.
Farmers pin their hopes on Macron
Resistance to the ill-fated free trade pact is erupting in angry protests, particularly in France, a huge agricultural country. The "agriculteurs", known to be rebellious, have called for a march on Paris throughout the Grande Nation. Roads were blocked, protest fires lit and wooden crosses erected across the country to draw attention to the imminent threat to their livelihoods. A ray of hope for all the continent's beleaguered farmers: President Emmanuel Macron is making no secret of the fact that he will not sign the agreement. Not only this statesman is calling for an immediate halt to negotiations!
Warning of a "burning" Europe
However, protests against the climate-killing pact are also continuing elsewhere. Poland, with its powerful agricultural sector, has now joined the camp of Mercosur critics with flying colors. The agreement is unacceptable in its current form, raged Prime Minister Donald Tusk towards Brussels. What's more, Warsaw and Paris are forging an alliance to organize a blocking minority within the EU and stop the negotiations on a free trade zone with Brazil. The Polish government also passed a resolution.
Because the agreement could have a massive impact on the beef and poultry sector, farmers in the eastern EU country also took to the streets and blocked the Medyka border crossing with Ukraine for hours! "If Brussels pushes through the pact, Europe will burn," warned the angry farmers.
"Red alert" on Austrian farms
In Austria, too, there is growing resistance among farmers. "Our small-scale mountain and organic farming must not be misused as a bargaining chip for other interests in such a trade agreement," rages Niki Berlakovich, Austria's farmers' representative in Brussels. Austria's Turkish MEP Alexander Bernhuber is even clearer: "This agreement is nothing other than a sell-out of our values! We in Europe care about the environment, animal welfare and quality. And we are now supposed to pay for this with our existence? Not with us!"
The powerful red-white-red agriculturalists, as well as Lower Austria's Farmers' Union Director Paul Nemecek, make it unmistakably clear: "This agreement must never become reality. We demand an immediate halt to negotiations! Austria must continue to lead the resistance - for our farmers, for our environment and for all of us!" Josef Moosbrugger, President of the Chamber of Agriculture, has also come out from his home barn in Vorarlberg with a clear rejection of the deal.
"The vast majority of products whose exchange this devastating agreement is intended to boost are fueling the destruction of the rainforests and thus the extinction of species. The pact would flood Europe with cheap beef that robs people of their livelihoods and would also deal a fatal blow to our beet farmers through sugar imports," says Greenpeace Europe head Alexander Egit, once again sounding the alarm. This is evident in the Cerrado, the world's second green lung alongside the Amazon. As the WWF has repeatedly revealed, not even a single blade of grass grows there.
Over hundreds of kilometers, the once flourishing paradise for soybean cultivation has been completely cleared - just to throw more cheap GMO feed for pigs and cattle onto the world market.
"More exports would result in even more grazing land for tortured cattle," says Egit. What also outrages environmentalists and consumer advocates alike is that production in South America also takes place under the most socially questionable conditions.
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