Mercosur is the customs union of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. The European Union began negotiating a free trade agreement with it in 1999 and signed one in January 2026. It removes tariffs on nine tenths of the goods traded between seven hundred million people: European cars, machinery, wine and cheese going one way, South American beef, poultry, sugar and soya the other. European farmers fought it for two decades. Four days after the signature the European Parliament sent it to the Union's court; it has applied provisionally since May, and in the same month the Union banned Brazilian meat.
The wider contest and each power's full account: Outside powers in Latin America.
Where it stands · September 2026
On 1 September the European Union suspended imports of meat from Brazil during a health scandal. Brussels had banned Brazilian meat imports four months earlier, after the EU-Mercosur free trade agreement. On 29 September the Court of Justice of the European Union rejected a request to suspend the Mercosur agreement, and the Vice-President of the court dismissed Poland's complaint against the deal. The agreement remains in force.
What the dispute is about
Farms. South American ranches produce beef at about half the European cost. The agreement admits a quota at a low tariff equal to about one and a half percent of what Europeans eat. Farmers say the quota sets the price for everyone.
Standards. European farmers must follow rules on pesticides, antibiotics, animal welfare and deforestation that their competitors need not. They ask that imports meet the same rules. Mercosur calls that protection under another name.
Procedure. The Commission split the agreement so that the trade part needs only a majority of member governments and the European Parliament, not every national parliament. France, Poland, Austria, Ireland and Hungary voted against and were outvoted.
