A lightning round of talks with EU countries is expected Wednesday afternoon to finalize a common position on the additional instrument. The talks are expected to be prickly, given the time pressure and the fact that the Council of the EU, which represents governments, adopted the original Commission proposal as its position.
Final haggling over the agreement with Mercosur — which groups Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay — may run into a summit of European leaders being held in Brussels on Thursday and Friday of this week.
Overall, lawmakers backed lower thresholds for Brussels to look into unfair competition and to carry out investigations more quickly.
Their position would require the Commission to investigate surges of beef or poultry from Mercosur countries as soon as imports rise by more than 5 percent compared to the previous three-year average, and if those imports are priced at least 5 percent below comparable EU products. In the original Commission proposal, both thresholds were set at 10 percent.
Further turning the screws on the safeguards, the lawmakers also added a “reciprocity obligation” that would require Mercosur countries to apply EU production standards in order to access the continent’s market of 450 million people.
This last tweak is set to be one of the most difficult points in the negotiation with the Council and the Commission.