Ireland's former EU Commissioner Phil Hogan has said Irish farmers had nothing to fear from the EU-Mercosur trade deal and that the dairy and grain sectors would benefit from it.
He said for the EU to turn its back on a trade deal covering a combined population of 700 million would be "very difficult to explain".
In rare public comments since he resigned as EU trade commissioner in 2020, Mr Hogan told RTÉ News that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had handled the EU-US trade negotiations as well as could be expected this summer.
Opposition to both the EU-US trade agreement and the EU-Mercosur deal were cited in two motions of censure against President von der Leyen at the European Parliament in Strasbourg last week.
Speaking following an address to the Institute for International and European Affairs (IIEA) in Brussels last night, Mr Hogan said: "Farmers and the Irish Government have nothing to fear about the ratification in a positive way of the Mercosur deal, considering all of the safeguards that have been put in place in relation to the beef sector.
"There are many winners in the agricultural sector, which we don't hear from them in a positive way, like the dairy sector, like the grain sector, who are going to be big beneficiaries of this particular deal."
He added: "The notion, in the context of the geopolitical sense that we are now in, that Europe can turn its back on a trade deal with 700 million of a [combined] population, which will reduce customs and taxes by €4 billion over a seven-year period with South America is certainly something that politically will be very difficult to explain."
Mr Hogan, who had served as EU Agriculture Commissioner from 2014 to 2019, said he understood the sensitivities of Irish beef farmers.
However, he said the safeguards against any market distortions as a result of South American beef imports were robust.
He said: "I know what the safeguards are, and I know that they're very strong, and they're even going to be put in separate legislation to underpin the deal, which is unprecedented in European terms."
Mr Hogan said the Irish Government had enshrined opposition to Mercosur in the Programme for Government and he said he suspected "they’ll have to stick with that decision".
However, he expected the trade deal to be ratified under the Qualified Majority Vote (QMV) system.
"I think that there will be a majority in favour of it," he said.
On the EU-US framework trade agreement, reached in August following months of negotiations, Mr Hogan said the European Commission had handled the negotiations as well as could be expected, given the pressure the Trump administration had been putting on the EU in relation to European security and its relationship with China.
"At the end of the day, when you take account of everything, I think that the European Commission couldn't do any more than what was achieved.
"I think President von der Leyen and [EU trade] Commissioner [Maroš] Sefčovič had a difficult hand of cards, and I think they handled it fairly well," he said.
However, he said sectors like medtech and agriculture were still not resolved in terms of the transatlantic trade agreement, and that President Donald Trump would still push for further concessions.
"You can never know with President Trump, what he's likely to do in terms of reopening a deal that has already been agreed.
"But hopefully he is honourable enough, and the administration is honourable enough to know that when they did what he perceived to be a good deal with the European Union, and that he's actually prepared to be satisfied about it.
"But I think Europe now has to stand solidly and stand assertively in favour of the deal that was done and not to be changing it."
Phil Hogan resigned as EU Trade Commissioner in August 2020 following the controversy over a golf outing during a period of strong Covid-19 restrictions.
He has continued to work in Brussels as a trade lobbyist.
