The European Commission will "proceed with [the] provisional application" of the Mercosur trade deal with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, the commission's chief Ursula von der Leyen announced on Friday. The deal was signed in January after over 25 years of negotiations, despite opposition from some European farmers.
Neither the move from the far right nor hard left are expected to garner enough votes to be a serious threat, but they show Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu still faces strong opposition from within the parliament that toppled his two predecessors. France has been mired in political crisis since Macron in 2024 called snap polls which he hoped would consolidate his majority but instead ended up in a deeply divided lower house.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has left the door open for the Government to back the Mercosur trade deal after the European Union made concessions this week in a bid to secure support for the controversial agreement. Mr Martin was speaking to reporters in Shanghai on the third day of his state visit to China following a move by the EU Commission to link the deal to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) funding.
