ePURE statement on the European Parliament’s vote on EU-Mercosur safeguards

If a trade deal takes 25 years to negotiate and still isn’t right, perhaps that’s a sign it should be scrapped. Even after all this time and effort to drag it across the finishing line, the EU-Mercosur agreement remains a bad deal for the EU renewable ethanol sector, for European farmers and for Europe’s drive for strategic industrial and agricultural autonomy.

The European Commission ignored repeated warnings from sensitive agricultural sectors like European bioethanol producers and decided to offer Mercosur countries a huge share of the EU’s ethanol market. In doing so, the EU is putting at risk European biorefineries producing food, feed, fuel, fertilizers and much more. Moreover, the ‘safeguards’ cobbled together at the eleventh hour to appease strategically important sectors are insufficient and largely symbolic: the procedures are complex, thresholds high, and reaction times slow.

Although the European Parliament attempted to improve this bilateral safeguard instrument, it remains unworkable and impractical in real trade conditions for EU sensitive agricultural sectors like renewable ethanol.

The mere possibility that Mercosur could double its annual ethanol exports highlights a serious flaw in the agreement. Ethanol should have been designated a sensitive product from the start. The volumes of duty-free ethanol granted to Mercosur countries are grounded in outdated models that fail to align with today’s market conditions or pricing realities.

Lastly, the risk of circumvention of fuel ethanol via so called chemical use route remains high with uncertain “end-use procedure” customs compliance in the future.