The free trade deal between the European Union and the South American bloc MERCOSUR is frozen.
On Wednesday, MEPs asked the EU Court to consider the prospects of a trade agreement with the South American bloc, significantly delaying the conclusion of the contract and potentially jeopardizing its final approval.
As expected, the vote in the European Parliament was tense: 334 MEPs voted in favor of referring the agreement to the court, 324 against, and 11 abstained.
The document signed on January 17 aims to create a free trade area uniting more than 700 million people.
Supporters of the agreement believe it opens up broad opportunities for European industry and strengthens the EU's geostrategic positions, especially considering the current disagreements with the USA. However, the agreement has sparked outrage among farmers concerned about the consequences of an influx of cheap and possibly low-quality food products from South American countries into the European market.
A day before the vote, mass protests took place in Strasbourg: thousands of farmers on tractors surrounded the European Parliament building and clashed with the police.
What will happen next?
Now the EU Court will consider whether the trade deal violates European legislation.
MEPs who proposed to refer the case to the court believe that splitting the deal into parts, which left the trade part for approval only by the EU Council and the European Parliament, was a special tactic by the European Commission aimed at "preventing national parliaments [of member states] from expressing their views on the agreement" and may be deemed unlawful by the judges.
The resolution calling for a review of the agreement also challenges the legality of the so-called "rebalancing mechanism," which will allow MERCOSUR countries to seek compensation if future EU laws reduce their exports to Europe.
The resolution passed on Wednesday suspends the approval procedure for the agreement in the European Parliament, which was supposed to conclude in the coming months. The highest court in the EU may take more than a year to make a decision, and until then, the deal will be frozen.
The European Commission can still temporarily start implementing the deal while the Parliament's appeal is being considered, despite having promised in several emails sent to MEPs that it would refrain from doing so, as revealed by Euronews.
This is technically possible, as indicated by a Commission representative, but it risks escalating tensions between EU institutions.
Division in Parliament
The vote also showed that the Parliament is divided in half.
The groups "Renew Europe," "Greens/European Free Alliance," and "The Left" supported referring the matter to the court, generally opposing the trade deal, albeit with some exceptions.
The far-right group "Patriots for Europe" also supported referring the matter to the Parliament and did not hesitate to vote for the initiative coming from the left, as stated by its chairman Jordan Bardella.
The European People's Party and the Socialists and Democrats, the largest factions in Parliament, defended the trade deal and voted against referring the case to the court. However, both groups had MEPs who challenged the majority's position.
European Conservatives and Reformists allowed their deputies to vote freely, resulting in a split: Polish and French MEPs supported referring the case to the court, while Italian, Czech, Belgian, and Baltic MEPs opposed it.
