Ihe head of the Spanish government, Pedro Sanchez, and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, will arrive at the summit organized between the European Union and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States [Celac] of 17 and 18 July with the same objective: the adoption of the agreement between the EU and Mercosur [Argentine, Brésil, Paraguay et Uruguay], whose negotiations were completed in 2019. France, along with others, will have the difficult but necessary role of opposing it. This is the meaning of the resolution adopted by the National Assembly on June 13, carried by deputies from nine political groups.
We have sent an unambiguous signal to Brussels: we cannot, in 2023, give up on our environmental, health and social requirements to obtain favorable economic trading conditions. This agreement, negotiated between 2000 and 2019, is flawed by its obsolescence. Its signature would break a little more the acceptability of foreign trade by French society, in an environment where many voices are raised to completely close themselves to it.
Let’s start by naming the evil: trade treaties are increasingly decried. Discussions around Tafta [accord de libre-échange entre l’UE et les Etats-Unis] and CETA [accord économique et commercial global entre l’UE et le Canada] have shown: from our agricultural rural areas to our urban youth, opposition is numerous and environmental, health and ethical concerns are growing.
Vitality of our IGP, AOC and AOP
In 2020, 51% of French leaned towards protectionism! Unfair competition, the source of many fantasies, is the fiercest enemy of free trade. However, the current EU-Mercosur agreement creates unfair conditions in the exchange: it would allow 99,000 tonnes carcass equivalent of South American beef to be imported into France without customs duties. Livestock potentially raised on antibiotics, which has been banned in France since 1er January 2006. How, in this case, to ask our breeders to resist, and how to find buyers for the third of our farms whose operator will retire in the next ten years?
Among young French people, 60% identify the environment as their main concern. How do you explain to them when the European Union is adopting a text that would cause an annual increase of more than 5% in deforestation in the Amazon? How, finally, to justify that France, which hosted COP21 and used its best diplomatic skills to reach the Paris Agreement, today accepts a text that does not make its respect an essential clause?
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