Very serious doubts about the Commission’s commitment to safeguard clauses in the EU-Mercosur Agreement
29.9.2025
Question for written answer E-003781/2025
to the Commission
Rule 144
Mathilde Androuët (PfE)
On 3 September 2025, the Commission referred in relation to Mercosur to ‘a legal act that operationalises the bilateral safeguards chapter’[1]. The plan is for that act to bolster ‘safeguards protecting sensitive European products’[2].
In December 2024, the Veblen Institute took the view that ‘the clauses added at the EU’s request’ were ‘in no way sufficient’ with regard to health and the environment, and that ‘some of the new provisions’ could make it ‘exceedingly difficult to adopt and effectively implement mirror measures’[3].
A recent French edition of Contexte quotes a new memo from the Veblen Institute which stresses that the Commission’s commitment to safeguard clauses is simply a ‘unilateral political declaration ... which has no binding legal on Mercosur countries’, and it makes no mention of ‘the importance of meeting European health or environmental standards for agricultural production, although that is brandished as France’s main red line’[4].
Can the Commission rebut in detail the Veblen Institute’s analysis?
Submitted: 29.9.2025
- [1] ‘Commission proposes Mercosur and Mexico agreements for adoption’, 3 September 2025, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_1644
- [2] ‘La Commission européenne valide l’accord avec les pays du Mercosur, la France salue les garanties sur l’agriculture’ (‘European Commission validates agreement with Mercosur countries, France welcomes farming guarantees’), Juliette Verdes, 3 September 2025, https://www.touteleurope.eu/l-ue-dans-le-monde/la-commission-europeenne-valide-l-accord-avec-les-pays-du-mercosur-la-france-salue-les-garanties-sur-l-agriculture
- [3] ‘Key Insights into the Final EU-Mercosur Agreement’, Mathilde Dupré and Stéphanie Kpenou, 12 December 2024, https://www.veblen-institute.org/Key-Insights-into-the-Final-EU-Mercosur-Agreement.html.
- [4] Contexte, 16 September 2025.