(by 10 votes difference) opens a dramatic vacuum for Europe.
If the Commission goes over it and – for what it has powers – it will overcome that hole, but it risks opening an institutional conflict.
Otherwise, the parliamentary request to the Court of Justice (CJEU) to examine the text freezes it for a year and a half or two. And in a tortuous way, since that is its objective, appealing to a procedural trick: previous similar cases have already been validated by the Court (Singapore, in 2017). In this scenario, the drama is, from a geoeconomic perspective, threefold.
One, it facilitates the United States an unrestricted leap towards uncontested hegemony throughout Latin America (LatAm). Two, failing that, pushes China to dispute European positions there (the three actors dispute primacy). And three, it weakens its credibility to negotiate, a space with 1.4 billion inhabitants, five times more than Mercosur: the counterpart will say that if the EU is unable to ratify what has been agreed, let’s save efforts.
But furthermore, rejection is a ruinous business in itself for the EU, an amazing own goal. The most recent study quantifies the reduction in European exports at 3,000 million euros annually, and the failed increase in GDP at 4,400 million (The cost of delaying the ratification of the EU/Mercosur trade agreementECIPE, December 2025).
Biggest suicide for . Its industry will lose a lot, but its primary sector remained in balance: gains in wine and milk offset losses in beef. And the negative effect on this (0.3% on farmers’ income) was negligible compared to the doubling of their prices since 2019 (Alexandre Gohin and Alan Mattews, The European Union/Mercosur association agreement: implications for the EU livestockJournal of Agricultural Economics, 9/26/2025). With its hyper-protectionism, the Hexagon has fallen since 2000 from the second largest exporter in the world to sixth, and Spain is hot on its heels. The Spanish experience with Morocco should vaccinate us all: thanks to the agreements with the EU, the Alawite kingdom has surpassed Spain in its exports to the Twenty-Seven… in volume; but it is still far below in value.
The imperative today is to diversify exports to other areas. Let’s look at the Chinese example. Despite very intense tariff pressure, in 2025 it has managed to increase its sales abroad – to the entire world market – by 5.5%, half a point more than its GDP (5%). While the EU has seen its prices reduced by 6.5% (until November of the same year; data from TradeEconomics, Eurostat); Spain is an exception, it increased them by 0.6%.
It is very relevant that between August (tariffs have been in force since the end of July) and November 10%; but in the last month, 20.3%: a terrible trend. Either it is compensated in LatAm, in India and other areas, or alas! of European commercial primacy in the world.
There are other unreasons in the blockade of Parliament, fueled by the ultras of both sides.
Contrary to what they propagate, “all imported products [de Mercosur] “They must respect the sanitary and phytosanitary standards of the EU, without fattening with hormones or antibiotic treatments,” writes the great French expert Jean-Luc Demarty (The Mercosur agreement: a European success, a French shipwreckTelos, 1/13/2026). Another thing is the controls carried out by each Government. But that is a national issue, not a European one.
