- Country or region
- Mercosur
- Trade topics
- Economic Partnerships
Together with a population of over 700 million people, we share close cultural and economic ties and strong mutual interests, and work on tackling common challenges. The EU is a key trade and investment partner for Mercosur: it exported to Mercosur €57 billion in goods in 2024 and €29 billion in services in 2023. The EU's investment stock in Mercosur reached €390 billion in 2023.
The EU-Mercosur Partnership Agreement strikes a balanced strategic and economic partnership. It will unlock new opportunities for EU businesses, giving EU companies a competitive advantage in the Mercosur region. It aligns with the EU sustainability goals and addresses sensitive areas, particularly in agriculture.
Safeguarding agriculture
As a net exporter of food, the EU’s trade agreements deliver tangible benefits for farmers by expanding access to key markets, with products such as dairy and wine set to benefit strongly, including from the EU-Mercosur Partnership Agreement.
For EU farmers, the deal presents new opportunities, with a potential 50% increase in EU agri-food exports to the region, and protection of high-quality traditional (GI) EU food and drink products from imitation.
Responding to the concerns of EU farmers and Member States, the agreement also provides an unprecedented set of measures to protect sensitive agri-food sectors and ensure a level-playing field and reciprocity, including:
- limited import quotas on sensitive products, phased in gradually, and;
- the strongest ever safeguards against any potential surge in imports.
In parallel, a series of accompanying measures will support farmers:
- reinforced import controls and audits to ensure strict and effective enforcement of EU food health and safety standards. For instance, the number of audits carried out on non-EU countries are set to increase by 50%, and those carried out on EU Border Control Posts are set to increase by 33% in 2026-2027.
- concrete commitment to work towards the alignment of production standards.
- all underpinned with a safety net of 6.3 billion in the new long-term EU budget (double the current amount), in the unlikely event of the agreement having a harmful impact on EU agricultural markets.
