Brussels, (Unib Rashid) __ The Mercosur agreement, Parliament approved safeguard clauses to protect EU agriculture. According to these clauses, Parliament has set additional guarantees for sensitive agricultural products such as beef and poultry. It has set strict thresholds to trigger these safeguard measures. While the Commission will monitor the market and report every six months.

According to more details, MEPs backed extra safeguards on Tuesday to prevent harm to Europe’s agriculture sector following trade liberalisation with Mercosur countries.

The new regulation, already informally agreed with EU member states, was adopted by 483 in favour and 102 against, with 67 abstentions.

It sets out how the EU could temporarily suspend tariff preferences envisaged in the EU-Mercosur trade deal on agricultural imports from the Mercosur countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay), if a surge in these imports harms EU producers.

Under the new rules, the Commission will launch an investigation into the need for protection measures when imports of sensitive agricultural products, including poultry, beef, eggs, citrus and sugar, increase by 5% on a three year average (below the 10% per year proposed by the Commission) and if, at the same time, import prices are 5% below the relevant domestic price.

An investigation may also be requested by a member state, or a natural or legal person representing the industry, or an association acting on behalf of the industry, in the event of a threat of serious injury to the industry concerned.

At least once every six months, the Commission will have to present a report to Parliament assessing the impact of imports of sensitive products.