The government will be closely scrutinising the final details of the Mercosur deal before making any conclusion on it, Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue said at December's Agriculture and Fisheries Council meeting in Brussels on Monday morning.

"We are waiting to see the detail and the text of the instruments that we were seeking that were important in relation to environmental standards and safeguards.

"That has been something that Ireland has been very much to the forefront at European level, in terms of trade, that the same obligations are put in those countries that we trade with from an environmental point of view as we ask of our own farmers and producers.

"We'll be scrutinising very closely the outcome of the deal - we haven't see the final text yet. We'll be very closely looking at the final detail of the text before coming to any conclusion," he said.

Commissioner

European Commissioner for Agriculture Christophe Hansen, speaking at Monday morning's council meeting, said that the Commission negotiated a deal on the basis of a mandate given by the council.

"I believe that this mandate has been respected, otherwise the Commission wouldn't have concluded it. Now it is up to the co-legislators that have been involved all over the process.

"The co-legislators got the briefing and now it will be up to them to analyse the result and see if it is line with the expectations," he said.