The struggle to ratify the deal exposes a weakness in Europe’s geoeconomic agenda: the EU can reach ambitious agreements with external partners, but it is poorly equipped to assemble and sustain the domestic coalitions needed to deliver them.
When Ursula von der Leyen addressed the World Economic Forum in late January, she cast the EU’s agreement with Mercosur as a “breakthrough” and a “powerful message to the world”. That message, she said, was that the EU was “serious about de-risking our economies and diversifying our supply chains”. Concluding negotiations after 26 years is an achievement, particularly in today’s more hostile global environment. But assembling domestic political support for the agreement has proven far more difficult.
In early January, the agreement scraped through the Council of the EU on a narrow qualified-majority vote – enough to move the trade-only elements forward, but without a convincing political mandate. Days later, a slim majority in the European Parliament requested a legal opinion from the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The risk is that a deal sold as geopolitics ends up mired in procedure – and that Europe’s credibility as an external partner pays the price.
The saga goes on
The EU and four Mercosur countries – Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay – opened talks in 1999, at the high-water mark of globalisation. The EU’s original goal was to deepen inter-regional links and anchor Latin America more firmly within a rules-based system. Mercosur countries, for their part, sought better agricultural access to the lucrative European market, and greater autonomy from the United States at a time when the Clinton administration was pushing a hemispheric trade agenda through the now-defunct Free Trade Area of the Americas. That initiative ultimately faltered because of irreconcilable differences over US agricultural subsidies and arrangements for intellectual and investment protection.
Twenty-six years and 45 negotiating rounds later, European and Mercosur political leaders have revived an agreement that most assumed would not survive the post-2009 backlash against globalisation. Concluding it now reflects a shared search for greater flexibility in a world where global trade rules are under pressure from both Washington and Beijing, trust is scarcer, and both sides want more room to manoeuvre. The symbolism was hard to miss: the agreement was sealed in Asunción, Paraguay’s capital, on the very day when US president Donald Trump threatened new tariffs on several European countries after they opposed his threats to take over Greenland.
Domestic EU politics, however, have not adjusted to the geopolitical stakes. Opposition to the Mercosur deal has been significant ever since the negotiations resumed in the late 2010s. When draft texts first surfaced in 2019, sceptical member-states led by France pushed back hard on agricultural and environmental grounds. Resistance returned with the final package in late 2025, as European farmers protested loudly against the deal. Even after side-assurances and political outreach to wavering capitals, the Council vote was narrow: five member-states (France, Poland, Ireland, Austria and Hungary) opposed it and Belgium abstained. That was enough for the trade-only elements of the deal to proceed, but it fell well short of a convincing political mandate. Soon after, a narrow majority of MEPs sent the agreement to the ECJ, splitting the Commission’s political base in Parliament. Depending on the court’s timetable, the referral could delay ratification by up to two years.
Domestic EU politics have not adjusted to the geopolitical stakes. Opposition to the Mercosur deal has been significant ever since the negotiations resumed in the late 2010s.
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The parliamentary move was partly about the substance of the agreement and partly about the politics. MEPs on the far right and the political left have long disapproved of Mercosur; for others, including some in the governing coalition, sending the agreement to the ECJ was a way of reasserting its leverage over the Commission. The core legal question is whether the Commission’s decision to split the Mercosur package into an interim trade agreement and a broader partnership agreement fits EU law and competences. The Commission’s logic is straightforward: after years of bruising experiences with national ratification blockages, Commission lawyers sought to ringfence the trade deals from multiple national veto points. Under this approach, trade provisions that fall under exclusive EU competence can be approved by qualified majority, while other elements still require unanimity and national ratification.
What comes next
The Commission and European leaders must now decide how to proceed with ratification while the case is before Luxembourg-based judges. They have two broad options.
The first is to wait for the ECJ’s opinion – a low-drama route that keeps MEPs engaged and avoids an institutional confrontation. But it would delay ratification for at least a year, risking a loss of momentum and reinforcing a perception that the EU can negotiate ambitious agreements but struggles to ratify them. The Commission can ask the court to expedite the proceedings, but there is no guarantee it will do so. The second option is to move to provisional application of the trade-only elements. The Commission could provisionally apply those parts once at least one Mercosur country has completed domestic ratification. The Council then has to authorise provisional application. Since several Mercosur signatories have already begun ratification in their national parliaments, this route could open as early as late spring.
Some European leaders, including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, support provisional application. Commission officials do too, arguing that this is a tried-and-tested mechanism when ratification stalls. The temptation to push the deal ‘over the line’ is understandable. But it forces a difficult political choice: whether the Commission makes provisional application conditional on a consent vote in the European Parliament. A vote is not strictly required under the EU treaties for provisional application. In practice, however, the Commission has treated parliamentary consent as prudent when applying other agreements provisionally, including during its tussle with MEPs over the EU-Canada agreement in 2017.
Even if a vote is held, approval is not guaranteed. Many MEPs would read provisional application as an attempt to sidestep their recent assertion of leverage. Yet moving ahead without a vote would be more combustible still: it would deepen grievances about fait accompli in trade policy and signal that treaty-based prerogatives carry little practical weight. In a Parliament where the Commission already faces formidable challenges in pushing its legislative agenda, such a move could poison not only the eventual Mercosur ratification but also spill over into other legislative dossiers.
About the Author:
Anton Spisak is a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform.