🙄 It’s not me, it’s EU

The European Parliament on Tuesday voted to stiffen a set of safeguard rules meant to sit alongside the long-delayed EU-Mercosur trade agreement, a sign that Brussels is trying to keep the deal alive by offering Europe’s farmers a tighter emergency brake.

Parliament’s position passed with 431 votes in favor, 161 against and 70 abstentions. Negotiators will meet the EU Council today to hash out the final wording. Under the draft regulation, the European Commission would be able to temporarily suspend tariff preferences for “sensitive” agricultural imports such as beef or poultry from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay, if those inflows are judged to be harming EU producers.

The most notable change was in the trigger. Instead of waiting for imports to rise by an average of 10% per year as in the Commission’s initial proposal, lawmakers backed…

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