The offer by the EU in this week’s round of Mercosur negotiations to allow 70,000t of South American beef into Europe at a significantly reduced tariff rate is a major blow to Irish beef producers. Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed correctly highlighted to the Irish Farmers Journal at the Ploughing Championships last month that this was the threat that caused him most concern at present – even more than Brexit.

Interestingly, An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has come out in favour of the trade deal but with the caveat that he wants to make sure our beef industry is competing on a level playing field.

Ireland, along with France, has been to the forefront in Brussels in building an 11-country alliance to oppose this offer with support from three others.

Whatever opportunities a Mercosur trade deal will create for other sectors, it will come at a cost and that will be paid by Irish and EU beef producers.

The Taoiseach and now the European Commission have the ambition to protect EU farmers by insistence on all imports being in compliance with EU production and welfare standards.

The naivety of this view is best reflected in a report published by another branch of the European Commission last week on what its latest audit found in Brazil in May of this year.

As Phelim O’Neill reports, the report not only details serious failings in production and processing standards but highlights attempts by Brazilian authorities to deceive EU officials in relation to guarantees previously given in addressing shortcomings in production standards.

Similar audits were carried out every year since 2013 and the last line in this year’s audit report summarises the fundamental problem. It says: “The findings of this audit demonstrate that those previous guarantees [provided for issues raised in other years] were not fully reliable.”

The reality is that DG SANTE, which is responsible for health and food safety, has several audit reports that show Brazil consistently fails to deliver to EU standards. That means the branch of the European Commission that negotiates trade deals cannot be confident that any standards negotiated in trade discussions can be met.

The Taoiseach needs also to be mindful of this when welcoming the possibility of a deal.