Italy pushes for revision of EU trade agreement with Mercosur

Italy is demanding stricter protective conditions in the planned trade agreement between the EU and the Mercosur group of countries.

According to Italian Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida, Rome is pushing for a reduction in the threshold at which safeguard clauses would be activated from eight percent to five percent.

This mechanism would allow the agreement to be suspended if imports of agricultural products from Latin America exceeded this threshold or if the prices of these commodities in Europe fell by more than five percent.

Italy is also demanding that all imported food meet the same safety standards as those produced in the EU. According to the minister, diplomats are conducting final technical and political consultations.

French farmers launched a blockade of roads leading to Paris and several city landmarks before dawn to protest against the agreement with Mercosur.

The farmers bypassed police checkpoints to reach the city. Before dawn on Thursday, they drove down the Champs-Élysées and blocked the road around the Arc de Triomphe.

Dozens of tractors blocked highways leading to the capital before the morning rush hour, including the A13 highway leading to Paris from the western suburbs and Normandy, causing 150 kilometers of traffic jams, according to the transport minister.

A decisive meeting of EU member states on Mercosur is scheduled for Friday.

(reuters, pir)