Anyone who thinks the blatantly self-serving move by Ireland to vote against the Mercosur deal will damage our standing in the European Union has a naive understanding of how the bloc works.
It is first and foremost a political union, run by politicians who find political solutions to their problems.
Every significant achievement from the single market to the single currency has involved political compromises, fudges and favours that eventually have to be repaid.
And therein lies the rub. Italy has done Ireland and the other holdouts a solid favour. It and the other member states that voted yes will expect something in return.
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Rather than worry about what last week’s carry-on says about the integrity of our politics, we should be thinking about what the quid pro quo might be.
[ ‘Big disappointment’: EC officials criticise Irish opposition to Mercosur dealOpens in new window ]
The whole point of qualified majority voting – introduced in 2012 and approved by referendum – was to make this sort of political horse trading even easier. It only requires 55 per cent of member states (representing at least 65 per cent of the EU population) to get a deal like Mercosur through.
Yes, it would have been more honest had Ireland – an exporting nation – voted in favour of the deal.
But once it became clear that Italy was on board and the vote would go through, then the Irish and French governments along with Poland, Austria and Hungary essentially got a free pass from the other states to pander to their domestic audiences. Which they promptly did in the shape of voting no.
People here – rather than in Brussels – seem to be troubled about this. It is strange in a country where “cutehoorism” is seen as required political skill that anyone is surprised the Government equivocated for months before voting against the deal once it was clear it would go through.
The suggestion that our European partners have anything but professional admiration of this adroit piece of political footwork and that we are going to be put on the Euro naughty step is to misread the room.
Equally bizarre in the Irish context – but in its own way refreshing – are comments to the effect that this is no way for a serious country to behave. We have always behaved this way.
[ Mercosur is good for Ireland but Micheál Martin is afraid to say itOpens in new window ]
There is more than a touch of the EU not wasting a crisis by using the current spate of global uncertainty to push through a deal that is 25 years in the making.
The geopolitical significance of striking a €45 billion free-trade deal with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay – as the United States embarks on a series of revanchist adventures in what it now calls its hemisphere – is not lost on EU member states.
Mercosur is undeniably beneficial to Ireland. It will see tariffs cut to zero on medical devices as well as chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Exports to Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay from these segments of the Irish economy were worth almost €430 million in 2024. Tariffs will be phased out on transport equipment – aircraft leasing – which was worth another €236 million, and machinery and electrical equipment exports of €122 million.
The only real argument against Mercosur in the current climate was it might weaken European food security, but instead of mining this seam the farming lobby led with exaggerated claims about hormones in beef and floods of cheap chicken breast. It was a weak hand.
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Relatively small amounts of a poultry, pig meat and beef – between 0.1 per cent and 1. 5 per cent of EU production – will be allowed into the EU under the deal with a safeguard clause to protect EU farmers against any sudden increase in imports.
The ostensible reason for Ireland’s No vote was inadequate safeguards, according to Taoiseach Micheál Martin, who said: “In terms of that basic issue around the obligations and standards for Irish farmers, our sense is that we don’t have confidence that they won’t be undercut. So the Government will be voting no.”
But no amount of safeguards were going to assuage the atavistic fears of Irish farmers.
The farming lobby has always been a proxy for the hopes and fears of rural Ireland and an outlet for its often inchoate anxiety at the way in which things seem to be changing for the worse as the economy shifts away from a traditional agricultural base. Mercosur was just the latest iteration of this long process.
The true hypocrisy of the Mercosur vote is that the No vote was supposed to demonstrate that the Government still listens to the farming lobby.
Instead the Government have weakened the lobby by giving the impression they take farmers for fools who don’t see a worthless No vote for what it is. The death knell of the once-all-powerful farming lobby has been sounded.
