Research
EU-Mercosur agreement: Implications for food and agribusiness
The EU-Mercosur trade agreement, finalized on December 6, 2024, marks a significant milestone in trade relations, particularly impacting the food and agribusiness sectors. This report outlines the agreement’s implications, highlighting opportunities and challenges for both regions. The agreement promises extensive trade liberalization, affecting market access and competitiveness across various sectors.
On December 6, 2024, the EU and the Mercosur group of South American countries announced that they had concluded negotiating a trade agreement between the two blocs.
There are still a number of steps to be taken before the agreement is ratified. This process could take some time to complete and may encounter resistance from some EU member states that take issue with the agreement’s increased access to the EU market for certain agricultural commodities, such as beef and poultry.
For the EU, the food and agribusiness sectors that could benefit include olive oil, cheese, and energy drinks. In general, there will be more opportunities to leverage the regional, specialty character of food products and strong European brands.
For Mercosur, the proposed agreement contains new access to the EU market via quotas for beef, poultry, pork, and ethanol. It also contains phased reduction or elimination of tariffs for a range of fruits, orange juice, and soluble coffee, and partial or total tariff elimination within preexisting quotas (for example, for beef and sugar).