Polish Services Again stopped transport of food from a Mercosur country. This time it is about 2.7 1000 litres of red wine from Argentina, which was to be sold on the Polish market. Inspectors questioned the batch covering about 3,6 1000 bottles, indicating many irregularities in the product marking. As a result, the decision was made to prohibit the placing on the marketplace in Poland, with immediate feasibility.
Another transport from Mercosur stopped at the border. We read that the branch of IJHARS in Krakow thoroughly checked the composition of the wine and, after uncovering extremist differences between it and the description on the label, decided to prohibit the placing on the marketplace of this product in Poland.
This is not an isolated case. Just a fewer days earlier, Polish services had stopped a 22-tonne batch of popcorn imported from Argentina. The reason was an excessive humidity level exceeding the manufacturer’s declaration. Nor has this transport been authorised.
Even earlier, the media informed about the halt of food transport from Brazil, where irregularities were detected during the inspection to prevent the product from entering the Polish market. This shows that control services are increasingly catching food import problems from South America.
These cases are peculiarly emotional due to the fact that the EU-Mercosur agreement, namely Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, has been in force for respective months. The agreement is intended to facilitate the movement of goods, including agricultural and food products, between the 2 regions. Critics of the agreement have long warned that agricultural production standards in the countries of South America disagree importantly from those in force in the European Union. peculiar controversy concerns plant protection products and pesticides which are banned in the EU but can inactive be applied in any Mercosur countries.
Disturbing signals besides flow from another European countries. In March 2026, further batches of Argentine sunflower were reported not gathering safety standards. According to the Bulgarian control services, exceedances of the permitted levels of chemicals have been detected and all deliveries from this direction have shown irregularities.
It cannot be ignored that the hazard of problems is higher where there are different regulations for the usage of plant protection products, animal welfare or product traceability. That is why EU border services and national inspections should carry out increased checks on imports from 3rd countries.
According to IJHARS data, over 81,000 batches of agri-food products imported from abroad were inspected only in 2025. 95 decisions have been issued prohibiting the placing on the marketplace of 119 batches of products originating in countries outside the European Union. This shows that the control strategy is working but at the same time reveals the scale of the challenges of global food trade.
The expanding number of detentions from Argentina and Brazil supply arguments to opponents of trade liberalisation with Mercosur. On the another hand, contract supporters show that it is thanks to an extended control strategy that non-compliant products are captured even before entering the store shelves. Regardless of the assessment of the agreement, 1 thing remains certain: with the increase in imports from South America, effective border controls will only grow.
Therefore, the apparent question arises: why waste time and money to increase controls and detect batches of Mercosur goods that do not meet the standards, erstwhile it is adequate to halt imports from these countries and to bet on their own production? All of them, not only Germany, France and Italy, who, under the Mercosur agreement, are corrupting coconuts in the field of motorization.
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