MEPs in Strasbourg approved enhanced safeguard clauses to be attached to the trade agreement with Mercosur, which includes Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay.
The measure passed with 483 votes in favour, 102 against and 67 abstentions.
The safeguards would apply to sensitive sectors including beef, poultry and sugar.
If imports from Mercosur rise by 5 percent, or if EU market prices fall by the same margin, so-called emergency brakes would be triggered.
In that case, the European Commission would be required to impose protective tariffs.
"We will be watching the European Commission closely," said Andrzej Halicki, head of the Polish delegation in the centre-right group EPP.
The approved clauses represent most of the demands put forward by Polish MEPs Krzysztof Hetman and Dariusz Joński.
However, lawmakers failed to secure a reciprocity clause that would have required Mercosur food production to meet the same strict EU standard, for example on the use of pesticides or antibiotics.
The Parliament had previously referred the Mercosur agreement itself to the European Court of Justice to assess its compatibility with EU law.
Halicki said concrete legal mechanisms were needed now to protect Polish farmers and businesses should the court approve the deal.
It remains unclear whether the European Commission will opt to provisionally apply the trade deal before the parliamentary vote and the court’s ruling – a power it holds under EU treaties and has exercised with previous trade deals.
(ał)
Source: IAR