Brazil warns that Macron requirement for commercial agreement is ‘unviable’

Macron, however, has another reading. He would have already warned Lula who, if he opens his market to Mercosur’s agricultural goods, the far right will accuse him of delivering France’s food sovereignty to French foreign interests and rural sector will expand his support for populist movements.

France articulates support for your proposal

While Lula and Macron spoke, however, France dispatched its agriculture minister to articulate with other European governments an alliance to try to curb the agreement.

Meetings in Budapest and Vienna have gathered the French Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty in recent days, Annie Genevard, Hungarian Minister of Agriculture, István Nagy, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Commerce, Péter Szijjarto, Austrian Minister of Agriculture Norbert Tletschnig.

At the meeting, the three countries “reiterate their strong concerns about the Free Trade Agreement project between the European Union and Mercosur countries, as concluded in Montevideo on December 6, 2024”.

“Large quantities of imported products produced according to lower standards could take European agricultural products from the market, significantly reducing purchase prices and thus the profitability of agricultural production. This would also impair production, development and investment, endangering European safety and sovereignty,” said Minister István Nagy of Hungary.