On Wednesday 14 May 2025, Greenpeace Luxembourg and Luxembourg environmental non-profit organisation Mouvement Ecologique Asbl issued statements condemning Luxembourg Prime Minister Luc Frieden for the government’s support of the European Union’s EU-Mercosur agreement.
In his speech, delivered on Tuesday 13 May 2025, Prime Minister Frieden stressed the importance of ensuring high-quality local food production and noted Luxembourg’s support for the EU-Mercosur agreement, which is a free trade agreement negotiated between the EU and the Mercosur bloc, which includes Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. It aims to create one of the world’s largest free trade areas, covering a population of over 700 million people.
In its press release, Greenpeace Luxembourg noted its disapproval of this decision and stated that it “strongly condemn[s] this government's position” and “call[s] on the government to reverse its decision and join the EU countries that reject it, notably France, Austria, the Netherlands and Poland”. According to the environmental organisation, the supplementary agreement which has been added to the treaty is “nothing more than greenwashing and will in no way have a positive effect on massive deforestation or climate change”.
Campaigner at Greenpeace Luxembourg, Martina Holbach, said: "The EU-Mercosur pact will only benefit big business, to the detriment of environmental protection, the climate, consumers and the farming community, both in Europe and in Latin America.” She added: "Luxembourg must clearly reject this toxic agreement. Neither the Amazon nor our farmers must be sacrificed on the altar of free trade."
In a sperate statement, Mouvement Ecologique acknowledged that Prime Minister Frieden’s speech “did contain some positive elements”, in particular his introduction of the initial components of the Energy Table (“Energiedësch”) initiative, which aims to simplify and accelerate procedures for constructing solar and wind energy installations. However, the environmental organisation noted Prime Minister Frieden’s speech “reveals a fundamentally problematic attitude toward the essential issues of sustainable development and the acute challenges of the climate and biodiversity crises” and added that the announcement of Luxembourg's support for the EU-Mercosur agreement was “abrupt and lacked transparency”. It concluded that “the Prime Minister appears to view economic growth as the primary, if not sole, prerequisite for social services and the energy transition. This perspective neglects the importance of sustainable development, biodiversity protection, climate crisis mitigation and the necessary socio-ecological transition.”
Mouvement Ecologique also criticised Prime Minister Frieden’s suggestion of redirecting CO₂ tax revenues to finance part of the pension system, raised concerns in relation to potential biodiversity loss due to the speech’s emphasis on accelerating housing construction and simplifying environmental protection procedures and highlighted the lack of clarity and direction on issues relating to the decarbonisation of industry, transport policy and climate goals.
