page_title: European Union–Mercosur free trade agreement
section_title: Finalization, Signature and Ratification
hierarchical_section_title: European Union–Mercosur free trade agreement / Finalization, Signature and Ratification
caption_attribution_description: English: Mercosur and European Union leaders gathered during a press conference in Osaka, Japan on June 29, 2019.
context_page_description: The European Union–Mercosur free trade agreement is a free trade agreement on which the EU and Mercosur reached agreement in principle in 2019. The deal was announced at the 2019 G20 Osaka summit after twenty years of negotiations. Although there is agreement in principle, the final texts have not been finalised, signed or ratified and therefore has not entered into force. If ratified, it would represent the largest trade deal struck by both the EU and Mercosur in terms of citizens involved. The trade deal is part of a wider Association Agreement between the two blocs, currently under negotiation.
context_section_description: After the adoption and publication of the 17 page "agreement in principle" on 1 Juli 2019, 29 unfinished texts of chapters and annexes of the trade agreement where published in July and September with a disclaimer that they were published "for information purposes only and may undergo further modifications including as a result of the process of legal revision". The essential liberalization schedules for goods, services and investment have not yet been released. Once the texts are final and legally revised they will need to be translated in all EU and Mercosur official languages. It may be up to two years before final text is available.  In the meantime negotiations for the two other pillars of the EU-Mercosur Association Agreement, namely "polical dialogue" and "economic cooperation" continue. After finalization the draft association agreement must be signed and ratified by the European Council, the European Parliament, Mercosur and national parliaments, a process that may take many years in itself. An EU association agreement must also be approved by the national parliaments of EU member states. However, the European Commission may decide to present the trade pillar as a separate trade agreement. In that case only the European Parliament will need to vote on the deal. The national parliaments of the Mercosur countries need to ratify the agreement in any case.
  There are a number of potential barriers which could stop the deal being ratified. For example, the election of a more left-wing candidate in the 2019 Argentine general election. The increased presence of environmentalists in the European Parliament following the 2019 election has also been noted. The Economist speculates that distance and other priorities may cause of a loss of interest similar to that which delayed the talks for so long.
  In July 2019 a symbolic motion rejecting the trade deal was passed in Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Irish legislature, by 84 votes to 46. The current government supports the deal however.
  In September 2019, lawmakers on the Austrian parliament's EU subcommittee almost unanimously voted to reject the draft free trade agreement citing concerns over their national farming sector and the Amazon forest fires. As such the government is obliged to veto the pact at EU level, where all 28 member states and their parliaments must agree to trade deals. Lawmakers from the centre-right ÖVP and the far-right Freedom Party also voted to reject the deal.
caption: In June 2019, representatives of EU and Mercosur announced they had reached an "historic" agreement
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