MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE Charlie McConalogue has said Ireland will seek to ensure that standards safeguards are enshrined in the proposed Mercosur trade deal between the European Union and Latin American countries.

The Mercosur bloc consists of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay and the EU reached a free trade deal with those states last Friday. 

The deal, which has been the target of fierce opposition by farmers in particular, still needs to be signed off on by EU member states.

McConalogue said the government would be scrutinising the text of the agreement “very closely”, adding that Ireland has expressed “very serious concerns” in relation to the deal in the past. 

“The detail is really important,” McConalogue told EU Radio News.

The Irish Farmers’ Association president Fancie Gorman responded to the agreement last week, saying that the EU had “sold out European farmers”. 

“We’ve been to the forefront at European level in relation to insisting that safeguards must be in place, and certainly we weren’t in a position to support Mercosur in relation to how it was initially proposed, without safeguards that would ensure that standards were upheld and the same standards were being expected of others,” McConalogue said.

He said Ireland would “continue to engage with other member states” on the detail of the agreement.

“But obviously the approach we take will be very much informed by seeing the detailed text and detailed safeguards that we have been saying must be there in order for any consideration to be given to the deal.”

European farmers have raised serious concerns that the trade deal would force them to compete with Latin American farmers who are not subject to the same regulatory standards as those in the EU. 

In the case of Ireland, impacts on beef producers are at the forefront of farmers’ concerns.