Franck Riester is firing on all cylinders. On television, on the airwaves and in the press, the Minister of Foreign Trade has been working hard in recent weeks to convince senators of the merits of ratifying the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). Because five years after the tense vote of the National Assembly, the free trade agreement between France and Canada is finally submitted to the Senate for a vote on Thursday March 21. This treaty, which partially entered into force in 2017, notably ratifies the elimination of almost all customs duties between the European Union (EU) and Canada.
Against the backdrop of the agricultural crisis and two and a half months before the European elections, the text is making its return to the parliamentary arena at the initiative of the communist group (PCF) in the Senate, which has included it in its niche. The Chamber, which is chaired by Gérard Larcher (Les Républicains, LR), has so far demanded without success, from the executive, to be able to pronounce on this CETA. “It is essential that free trade treaties can be debated by parliamentarians, explains Cécile Cukierman, the president of the PCF group in the Senate, but to this has since been added the expression of a deep agricultural crisis in our country to which we must be able to respond. »
It is in this context that an alliance of circumstance is taking shape at the Luxembourg Palace between elected officials from the right and the left, eager to become the voice of agricultural anger, in the face of the centrists and the Macronists.
While saying to himself “for free trade”the president of the LR group, Bruno Retailleau, is opposed to the ratification of CETA and wishes “send a double message to the government which disdained the Senate and to the Commission [européenne] to indicate that our agriculture cannot be the adjustment variable at a time when it is negotiating, behind our backs, Mercosur”. For his part, the senator (Socialist Party) of Seine-Maritime, Didier Marie, believes that “this agreement is an agreement from the old world”, pointing out, like others, the non-compliance with European environmental and health standards.
The presidential camp alone
The non-ratification of CETA is not unanimous within the senatorial majority of the right and the center. The centrist group will defend a motion on Thursday to refer the text to committee to postpone discussions on the agreement. “It is not appropriate to debate CETA now. We must do it seriously, avoiding giving an argument to all those who fight Europe”, annoys its president, Hervé Marseille, also president of the UDI party, recently joined the presidential camp for the European elections.
You have 65.18% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.