The EU’s trade agreement with Mercosur, a bloc of six South American countries, was finally given the green light following a vote by ambassadors in Brussels on Friday (9 January) — despite continued opposition from France.

The vote is a major boost for Ursula von der Leyen’s EU Commission, which said that the bloc’s credibility as a reliable trading partner would be jeopardised if the trade pact, which has taken more than 20 years to negotiate, was blocked at the 11th hour.

But the path to agreement has not been easy.

Paris was the most significant of a group of nay-sayers, which also included Poland, Ireland and Hungary.

EU officials have ensured that the trade deal, over which the EU has exclusive competence under the treaties, only required a qualified majority among EU states. The agreement will now face a ratification process in the European Parliament.

The vote is, however, a major diplomatic defeat for French president Emmanuel Macron, who spent much of last year seeking to rally a blocking minority.

Under qualified majority voting, a law or trade deal must have the support of at least 15 out of the 27 EU member states, with these states representing at least 65 percent of the EU’s population.

The “EU-Mercosur agreement is a deal from another era, negotiated for too long on outdated foundations,” said Macron on the social media platform X, adding that the economic benefits “would be limited for French and European growth.”

“It does not justify exposing sensitive agricultural sectors that are essential to our food sovereignty," he wrote.

The commission, which says that the Mercosur pact will save EU businesses more than €4bn in export duties alone, had hoped to clinch an agreement at a pre-Christmas summit in Brussels in mid-December, but France, Italy and others secured a delay amid noisy protests by thousands of farmers outside the EU institutions.

However, the EU executive has offered a series of policy giveaways to sweeten the deal for farmers in the first week of January, with commission president Ursula von der Leyen setting out plans to make €45bn in farming subsidies in the next seven year EU budget available immediately.

Following an emergency meeting of farming ministers on Wednesday, the commission promised guarantees on fertliser prices and tighter import controls to prevent produce containing residues from banned pesticides entering the EU.

Last year, EU officials set up a €1bn emergency fund for farmers losing business as a result of Mercosur, as well as an "emergency brake" to halt imports of beef, poultry, sugar or ethanol from the South American bloc threatened to hurt European producers.

That was enough to persuade Italy and Austria to change their minds and back the deal, giving the commission the majority it needed.

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