Court Review Threatens to Delay Long-Awaited EU-Mercosur Trade Agreement

After over 25 years of negotiations, the EU-Mercorsur deal faces a new obstacle right at the finish line. Shaped to be the largest free trade zone in the world —comprised by Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and all 27 countries that make up the European Union— the arrangement is now stalled after a contentious voting session in the European Parliament.

Last week, European lawmakers gathered in the French city of Strasbourg, the EU Parliament headquarters, and voted to request that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) analyze the EU-Mercosur agreement and make sure it's in line with European Union norms. The European Commission retains the option to apply the treaty provisionally in the meantime.

There were 334 votes in favor, 324 against and 11 abstentions.

The deal, which was signed by both parties — EU and Mercosur — on January 17 in Asunción, Paraguay, will now await the Court's review before the EU Parliament can officially sign the deal into law.

If no inconsistencies are found in the arrangement, the treaty will be voted on by the European Parliament. If it requires any amendments, the process could be extended even further.

Despite the steps taken, analysts like Vitelio Brustolin, an adjunct-professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and a researcher at Harvard University's Department of the History of Science, was not surprised that the European Parliament stalled the deal.

"There was already a large movement of parliamentarians from countries that didn't want this agreement," Brustolin told Latin Times, adding that European nations were divided about the good the trade deal could bring to the EU economies.

The professor predicts that the ECJ's analysis could take at least 16 to 18 months. The court must decide "whether the legal basis of the EU-Mercosur agreement respects the legal basis of the European Union in comparison with the interim trade agreement of the European Union," and that "in reality, in practice the agreement is stalled."

Figures shared by the European Commission project that the EU-Mercosur deal would increase the EU's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by more than €77.6 billion (about $92 billion USD) by 2040, with a 39% increase of annual exports up to €50 billion ($59 billion USD). There's also an expectation that the arrangement would support up to 600,000 jobs in Europe.

Countries such as France were against the deal. Farmers rolled out over 300 tractors into the streets of Paris on January 13 in protest of the deal, fearing that the EU-Mercosur deal could impact their domestic markets.

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