Kallas walks back claim Mercosur deal was agreed at European Council

by Eddy Wax / Kjeld Neubert / Sofia Sanchez Manzanaro

The EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas walked back her claim from Friday that European leaders decided at Thursday’s EU summit to sign the Mercosur agreement.

On Saturday a spokesperson for Kallas told Euractiv: “No mandate was given as such, but … President Costa asked member states to empower their ambassador to take the process forward.”

Kallas told a party congress of her liberal political family ALDE on Friday: “Yesterday at the European Council we gave a mandate to sign the Mercosur agreement.”

Those remarks directly challenged the read-out from national leaders and the EU’s leadership, such as Council President António Costa, who downplayed the extent to which the EU-South America trade deal was finalised at a political level during the meeting.

But her comments did chime with those made by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the end of Thursday’s meeting, when he said that leaders tasked their ambassadors with signing the deal at the meeting.

“All 27 agreed that the permanent representatives could sign. And in that respect, this is a clear mandate” Merz said. The European Parliament only had to ratify before signing “the final agreement” on 19 December, the German leader added.

French President Emmanuel Macron had a different reading of the situation, telling journalists after the summit that work continues.

Merz has been pushing to sign the Mercosur deal as soon as possible; whereas Macron has been slow-walking it, facing opposition from powerful French farmers. France and other countries secured special safeguards as part of the deal to protect farmers.

European Council President António Costa quashed Merz’s remarks at a press conference after the summit. Asked directly about the German Chancellor’s comments, Costa said: “We haven’t had a discussion on this … we haven’t decided anything.”

He said all he had done was ask the leaders to task their ambassadors with resolving technical problems about the translation of the deal.

Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker said in response to Merz’s comments on Thursday: “If a vote is taken in the current situation, I will have no choice but to vote no, because I am bound by a parliamentary decision.”

When asked by German MEP Svenja Hahn about her comments on Mercosur at the same party congress on Friday, Kallas said: “The understanding I think is there, considering how fast we have been able to move now after 25 years of negotiations.”

*Published first at Euractiv.com