This is rare enough to be underlined: the revolt against the treaty with Mercosur is unanimously supported by the political world and French agricultural stakeholders. Elected officials, members of the government and unions in the sector mobilized on Wednesday against the signing of a free trade agreement between the EU and the Mercosur countries. What do they blame him for? We'll explain it to you.
Customs duties
The free trade treaty with the Mercosur countries (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay), negotiated for more than twenty years, provides for import quotas into the European Union without customs duties or at reduced rates for meat beef, poultry, sugar, corn or even ethanol (which can be derived from sugar and corn).
The agricultural sectors assert that they cannot fight on equal terms against these Latin American productions on the grounds that the cost of labor is lower there and that the South American countries concerned can use growth-promoting antibiotics and banned pesticides. in the EU.
“It’s enough to destabilize the entire industry”
This free trade treaty, which gave rise to a first agreement concluded in 2019 but never ratified, provides for a quota for Latin American beef imports of some 90,000 tonnes per year. “It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s enough to destabilize the entire industry,” warns Céline Imart, French MEP, Republican representative and farmer.
Along with another French MEP, François-Xavier Bellamy, she sent a letter to European Commission President Urusla von der Leyen asking her “to reconsider this agreement and demand the introduction of robust mirror clauses”. These make it possible to ensure that both parties have the same health or environmental constraints, which, affirms Paris, is far from being the case.
“A treaty that would endanger our breeders”
More than 600 French parliamentarians (deputies, senators and European deputies) also wrote on Tuesday to the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen to mark their opposition to the treaty. The government spokesperson, Maud Bregeon, recalled, during the Council of Ministers on Wednesday, “the absolute opposition of the government to a treaty which would endanger our breeders”. “This treaty is not acceptable, both for ecological reasons and for the unfair competition it induces,” she added.
French Prime Minister Michel Barnier, denouncing “the disastrous impact that this agreement would have on entire sectors, particularly agriculture and livestock farming”, made it clear on Wednesday in Brussels. France will not accept the EU-Mercosur free trade agreement “under current conditions”, he insisted. “I recommend that we do not ignore the position of a country like France,” he warned, following a meeting with the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. Not sure that this is enough to convince the European Union, which seems determined to sign the text by the end of the year.
