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France is pushing to delay a vote to approve a trade deal next week between the EU and Mercosur group of South American countries, in a move that European diplomats warned could derail the pact.

The proposed agreement with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay — the EU’s biggest free trade deal — took 25 years to negotiate and was agreed a year ago but is yet to be ratified,

It faces strong opposition from European farmers who fear that increased imports, particularly of beef and chicken, would hurt their livelihoods.

The European Commission has been seeking final approval from member states so that president Ursula von der Leyen could travel to Brazil on December 20 to sign the pact.

But in a statement on Sunday, France’s Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said safeguards put forward by the commission, the EU’s executive branch, to help make the deal palatable to farmers were “still incomplete”. 

“France can only pronounce itself in a definitive manner on the basis of concrete, precise elements that can be put into action, and not just on the basis of announcements,” Lecornu’s office said. 

“This is why France is asking for the next steps in December to be pushed back, to continue the work and to obtain legitimate protections for our European agriculture.”

French President Emmanuel Macron has long been one of the more reticent European voices on the Mercosur deal. French farmers have staged angry protests in recent years over the agreement.

To assuage farmers’ concerns, the commission proposed a binding measure that would reimpose tariffs if imports of South American products undercut domestic production. 

The European parliament will vote on Tuesday on this measure.

The parliament’s trade committee has also included a separate amendment that would ban all Mercosur food imports not made to EU production standards, regardless of their safety or quality. 

The commission has previously said that any further changes to the text of the draft treaty would require approval by the Mercosur bloc. Its four members are already low on patience, EU diplomats say.

They also suggested that the French goal was to sink the deal by provoking Mercosur countries into walking away from it.

“If we don’t sign Mercosur in the next days it will be dead,” said a senior European diplomat. 

EU officials have insisted they will press ahead with the vote. 

It would take at least four states representing 35 per cent of the EU’s population to block the deal. Poland and Hungary have said they will oppose the pact, with Austria and Ireland yet to back it.

France would need Italy in its camp to block approval. 

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government has yet to clarify its stance. Italy’s main industry association has been pushing for the deal to go ahead but the farming association, Coldiretti, is strongly opposed.

Additional reporting by Amy Kazmin in Rome