The Romanian state supported the EU-Mercosur agreement after firm negotiations, which brought clear guarantees for industry and agriculture, said the Minister of Economy, Digitalization, Entrepreneurship and Tourism, Irineu Darău, on Saturday.
“The EU-Mercosur agreement will increase Romania’s exports! Beyond the hypocrisy of some politicians with ideas of isolating the country, Romania needs new export markets and fair rules for its producers. The Romanian state supported this agreement after firm negotiations, which brought clear guarantees for industry and agriculture. The result? Almost zero customs duties for Romanian products. Higher exports and access to cheaper raw materials. Higher production and jobs in the automotive, mechanical and electrical industries,” the minister wrote on his Facebook page, according to Agerpres.
He showed that, in 2023, Romanian companies paid over 47 million euros in customs duties for exports of industrial products to Mercosur and after the agreement entered into force, these duties almost completely disappear.
At the same time, Darău claims that agriculture is protected and Romania achieved this through insistence and negotiation: sensitive imports are strictly limited, EU standards remain mandatory, and 15 Romanian products with geographical indications will be protected on Mercosur markets.
“Isolation does not protect Romania. An open economy, which protects the interests of farmers and industry, makes it stronger,” the Minister of Economy stressed.
The Social Democratic Party condemned, on Friday, the decision of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to mandate Romania’s representative in COREPER to vote in favor of the EU-Mercosur Trade Agreement, in the absence of clear clauses that would guarantee that Romanian farmers will be protected from imports from Latin America.
The European Union is set to sign a trade agreement with Mercosur on January 17, a decisive step towards creating the world’s largest free trade area after more than a quarter of a century of negotiations and deadlocks, and which will allow the two sides to diversify their alliances in the face of the protectionist drift of the United States, reports the EFE agency.
EU member states obtained a qualified majority on Friday to validate the agreement, which will allow the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the President of the European Council, Antonio Costa, to travel to Asuncion (Paraguay, the country that holds the rotating presidency of the South American bloc) next week to officially sign the pact together with representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay.
The agreement was reached despite the negative vote of France – the main opponent of the pact -, Poland, Austria, Ireland and Hungary and the abstention of Belgium, with the support of Italy, which changed its mind after blocking it at the end of last month together with other opposing countries.
The new commercial space will integrate around 800 million consumers and will represent a common gross domestic product of around 22,000 billion dollars, according to European Commission data.
The agreement will allow the elimination of taxes for 91% of EU exports to Mercosur and for 92% of South American sales to Europe, which translates into an annual saving estimated at 4 billion euros for European companies.
For the European Union, the treaty opens the doors to a historically protected market for its most competitive industrial sectors, including the automotive and industrial machinery sectors, where current customs duties, ranging from 35% to 14%, will gradually disappear.
However, the green light from the European Union countries for signing the agreement with Mercosur does not yet represent the last step for concluding the historic pact, which may still face the last obstacles, especially regarding the ratification process in the European Parliament in 2026.