Ireland ‘cannot stop’ damaging EU beef deal
John Burns and Justine McCarthy
June 30 2019, 12:01am, The Sunday Times
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Irish farmers don’t want Mercosur beef importsALAMY
Ireland will be unable to veto a new EU trade deal with South America, which will lead to 99,000 tonnes of beef coming into the European market and which the Irish Farmers’ Association has described as “reckless and wrong”.
Facing demands yesterday to veto the deal with Mercosur, a South American trade bloc comprised of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, an Irish government official admitted that “in all likelihood” a veto will not be legally possible. “We may not be in a position to play that card,” he said. “The EU does have the power to do these deals unilaterally.”
The deal next goes before the EU trade council, where there is qualified majority voting and Ireland has only a 1-2% say.