The European Union should be ready to implement its landmark free trade agreement with the Mercosur bloc within months, EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic said on Friday, despite opposition from France and a legal challenge that could delay the deal by two years.
“When our Mercosur partners will be ready with the ratification, we should be ready as well,” Sefcovic told reporters ahead of a meeting of EU trade ministers in Cyprus, suggesting the European Commission could apply the agreement on a provisional basis without waiting for the court process to conclude.
Argentina could be the first Mercosur country to ratify, Sefcovic said, adding that it was already going through “the decisive phase” this week.
The deal with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay — signed in January after 25 years of negotiations — could remove around €4 billion in duties on EU goods exports, making it the bloc’s largest ever free trade agreement by potential tariff reductions. It has strong backing from Germany and Spain but faces opposition led by France, which argues that increased imports of cheap commodities such as beef and sugar will harm domestic farmers.
The European Parliament voted last month to challenge the agreement at the EU Court of Justice, a move that could delay implementation by two years. However, the Commission could choose to apply it provisionally far sooner.
Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament’s trade committee, said the bloc should first establish how quickly the court could rule. If a ruling within six months was possible, the agreement could be paused; if not, it might be put into force as early as April or May, he said.
Sefcovic said delays were costly as the EU seeks to offset lost business from US tariffs and reduce dependence on China, particularly for critical minerals. He cited a study by the ECIPE think-tank estimating that the bloc had sacrificed €291 billion in GDP between 2021 and 2025 by failing to ratify the deal sooner.
He said the Commission was also discussing with EU ministers how to accelerate the implementation of free trade agreements more broadly, pointing to recently concluded deals with India and Indonesia as potential test cases for a fast-track approach.
Read more: