STOP THE EU-MERCOSUR TRADE DEAL!

Our Action:

On September 29th, 2025, farmers, activists, unionists and organisers came together in Den Hague to protest against the toxic MERCOSUR deal the EU is trying to push through. Even though Parliament has passed motions against it, the government is still refusing to take a clear stand. We showed the members of the Dutch parliament what they are really discussing in their debate today. Caricatures of greedy politicians and lobbyists built a tower of greed inspired by the game Jenga. It represents all the negative impacts of EU-Mercosur on its stones. A tower like this will always fall in the end, annd so did ours. We want to make sure in reality this tower of exploitation, corporate greed and destruction never gets built. The Netherlands voting against the MERCOSUR agreement is a crucial step towards that goal.

The messages on the tower:

Corporate power
More banned agricultural poisons
Climate crisis
Undemocratic
Destruction of nature
Neocolonialism
Exploitation
Human rights violations
Displacement of Indigenous peoples
Murder of activists
Industrial job losses
Corporate lobbying
Monocultures
Extractivism
Modern slavery
Inequality
Unfair competition for European farmers

Mercosur critique

The European division of the global peasant movement La Via Campesina accuses the EU of using “farmers as a bargaining chip for the profit and benefit of other industries” (link). We join their cry: “food is a human right, not a commodity!”

The EU-Mercosur (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay) Trade agreement is being actualised with disastrous consequences on regional food sovereignty, pollution levels and farmers’ rights, reinforcing neo-colonial dependencies and systemic oppression in several ways.

Mercosur coutries will export raw materials like meat, soy or lithium to the EU. The industries like mining and Big Ag reaping profit from this will intensify their extractive practices, especially in the Amazon forest. Further deforestation and land grabbing with the consequences felt first by the Indigenous and local communities will ensue.
European farmers will have to compete with even lower prices in an already exploitative system; consumers will face lower quality standards (regulations on fertilizers and animal welfare are very different in the Mercosur regions; many pesticides in use there are now banned in the EU, but products grown with them will still reach European consumers).
Only big corporations will benefit from all these shifts, as small-holders and producers will loose access to markets and resources
EU gets to export machinery and cars to Mercosur: local machinery industry will have to compete with European prices, the European industry will keep producing and ‘dump’ heavily polluting appliances that do not suit European regulations (like petrol cars), increasing pollution in the South.
EU subsidised products such as dairy will be exported to Mercosur. This will force local producers to unfair competition and reduce the market for local production and thus food sovereignty.
The negotiation process for the deal took a very undemocratic turn, limiting national governments’ bargaining power, giving no say to citizens, farmers’ organisations and trade unions, and leaving environmental standards and protection of human rights as non-binding, dismissible side matters.

For more information on the impacts of the EU-Mercosur deal, check our resources. Overall, we are very happy about our performative action, as it attracted some audience and hopefully sparked local interest and concern. Nevertheless, we see it as only the beginning of more awareness creation and knowledge sharing on this very important issue, so please share, connect, and keep showing the true colours of this neocolonialist move in the disguise of a “freer market”.