Nordic LEFT MEPs Per Clausen (DK), Merja Kyllönen (FI) and Hanna Gedin (SE) strongly criticise the conclusion of the EU-Mercosur trade agreement by the Commission President today.

Their critic targets the agreement’s potential for significant harm to both people and the planet, as well as the way the European Commission is trying to avoid proper parliamentary scrutiny in the Member States.

I am very concerned about the risks to both the environment and the global climate that the Mercosur Agreement pose. The agreement will for instance mean an increased export from Europe to Mercosur of toxic pesticides that are banned in the EU. These will not only cause harm in the Mercosur countries, but also in Europe, when we import more fruits with dangerous pesticide residue, says MEP Hanna Gedin from Sweden.

A bad agreement for both sides

Among their points of critique of the agreement is that it risks causing harm to workers’ rights and smaller businesses on both sides of the Atlantic, to favour the interests of big corporations. This is another reason to reject the proposed agreement.

One of the things about the Mercosur trade agreement is, that it so clearly has the potential to do harm on both sides of the Atlantic. We must not sacrifice the rights and welfare of normal European workers or smallholders just to favour some big, corporate interest and their shareholder profits. I would welcome an analysis of what this truly means for European agricultural policy and its financing on a larger scale, says Finnish MEP Merja Kyllönen.

Approval process is trying to avoid democratic scrutiny

The Nordic LEFT politicians are also concerned by the way in which the European Commission is planning to approve the agreement. By splitting it up into different separate agreements, meaning that the EU Member States – many of whom have criticised the agreement – will not get to have their national parliaments vote on the agreement. This means that they are instead trying to slip the most controversial parts through via decisions taken only in Brussels.

At the heart of this is a very simple thing: If the European Commission is afraid that Parliamentary scrutiny of the draft agreement will lead to its rejection, the logical solution should not be to avoid the scrutiny – but rather to scrap the deal. That is how democracy works – the European Commission should try to strengthen than, but instead they are trying to undermine it¸ says MEP Per Clausen from Denmark.

The Nordic LEFT MEPs expect opposition to the agreement will come from many sides in the European Parliament, and underline that they will work to form alliances with other progressive forces in order to have it rejected.