Przyjmowanie umowy międzynarodowej UE-Mercosur przez Unię Europejską i państwa członkowskie
Accession to the EU-Mercosur International Agreement by the European Union and its Member States

Summary/Abstract: The conclusion of international agreements by the European Union is one of the key instruments shaping its external legal, economic, and political activity. In recent years, comprehensive trade agreements and partnership agreements have gained particular importance. Due to their multifaceted nature, they involve both the EU's exclusive competences and its competences shared with the Member States. One of the most complex and, at the same time, most controversial examples of such an agreement is the negotiated EU‑Mercosur agreement, which concludes more than 20 years of negotiations between the EU and the countries forming the Southern Common Market. Despite the political agreement reached in 2019 and the final agreement on the content of the agreement on December 6, 2024, its adoption is the subject of intense legal and political debate. This is due both to the broad regulatory scope of the agreement, covering trade, agriculture, environmental protection, sanitary standards, and competition policy, among other areas, and to the consequences that may arise from the fact that many of its provisions go beyond the EU's exclusive competences. The agreement is of a mixed nature, which means that it must be approved by the EU institutions and ratified by all Member States in accordance with their internal constitutional requirements. As a result, the process of adopting this agreement is subject to potential delays and the risk of political deadlock, which makes the analysis of the legal basis, the ratification procedure, and the possibility of applying the so‑called "splitting of the agreement" mechanism a matter of fundamental importance both from the perspective of EU treaty law and the practice of European trade policy.

• Details
• Contents