Senators debate on February 28, 2024 in Paris (AFP/STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN)
Between the European campaign and the agricultural crisis, Thursday’s examination in the Senate of the Ceta free trade treaty between the European Union and Canada is giving the government a cold sweat, before a possible rejection which would jeopardize the ratification of this criticized agreement.
“A political thunderclap”: this is how the communist group presents the debate which awaits the upper house from 10:30 a.m., with the hypothesis of a left-right alliance of circumstance rejecting this treaty applied provisionally since 2017, but never ratified completely by France.
The communist senators competed in ingenuity to achieve this: an extremely rare occurrence in Parliament, they included in their reserved parliamentary time not one of their legislative proposals, but a government bill authorizing the latter to ratify this famous ” Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement” (Ceta).
Signed in 2016, adopted in 2017 at the European level, Ceta was narrowly validated in the National Assembly in 2019, sparking a record number of abstentions for the time in the Macronist ranks. But the government never referred the matter to the Senate, a necessary step in the process.
– “Denial of democracy” –
“Since 2019, the government has continued its denial of democracy by refusing to include it here because it knows very well that a majority could emerge against the text,” protests communist Fabien Gay.
The senator and leader of the Republicans, Bruno Retailleau speaks in the Senate, January 31, 2024 (AFP/Archives/Miguel MEDINA)
Environmentalists, socialists and a large part of the senatorial right, the first group in the Senate, are in fact opposed to this treaty. “There was once again contempt for the Senate and Parliament and we have not forgotten that,” points out the leader of the Republicans, Bruno Retailleau.
Ceta, which notably eliminates customs duties on 98% of products traded between the European Union and Canada, is strongly criticized, in particular by French breeders who report meat imports at cost prices much lower than theirs and with less strict methods than those to which they are subject.
“Through Ceta, we bring in products from a completely different health model, which disregards all the rules,” inveighs senator LR Laurent Duplomb, a professional farmer who intends to send a “warning shot” to denounce the “culpable naivety” of the European Commission, in the middle of the electoral campaign.
The socialists, for their part, insist on the “renunciation of environmental ambitions” embodied by this agreement according to their senator Didier Marie.
Several unions and associations called for a rally near the Senate on Thursday morning to oppose Ceta, in which La France insoumise announced its participation.
Council of (AFP/Archives/Geoffroy Van der Hasselt)
In the camp of the defenders of the agreement, the Minister for Foreign Trade, Franck Riester, stepped up in the media to defend Ceta, denouncing the “instrumentalization” of oppositions in the midst of an agricultural crisis and fearing to send ” a devastating signal to our European partners.”
Pro-Ceta lobbying has been quite hyperactive in recent days, recognized several senators, contacted by the Canadian embassy or business leaders.
– “Bad message” –
In an article published by Les Echos, several employers’ organizations including Medef praised the “convincing results” of the treaty in seven years of provisional application, emphasizing the figures for French exports to Canada, which jumped by 33% between 2017. and 2023.
But in the government, despite the support of the centrist Union group of Hervé Marseille (UDI), we recognize that this mobilization risks not being enough: “We are a little short” in terms of votes, said a ministerial source on Tuesday , without commenting on the strategy that the government will adopt in the event of rejection.
A senatorial refusal would be far from trivial, because it would lead to a new examination by the National Assembly, again with a serious risk of rejection.
However, if a national Parliament declares the non-ratification of the treaty, this calls into question its provisional application across Europe, provided however that the French government notifies Brussels of the decision of its Parliament… this which he is not required to do.
Currently, ten member states have not completed the ratification process and only one has rejected it: Cyprus. But Nicosia never notified this rejection, which allows the agreement to continue to apply.
© 2024 AFP
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