France reaffirms opposition to EU-Mercosur deal as farmers’ protests mount

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and MPs from all sides of the political spectrum have reaffirmed France’s opposition to the EU-Mercosur deal in a timely political move as farmers fiercely opposing the deal have stepped up protests and plan to march on Paris.

Read the original French article here.

Farmers’ protests have spread across the European continent in recent days, including in Poland, Spain, Germany, Romania, France, and now Belgium.

Low wages, burdensome taxes and red tape, demanding EU standards, and, in particular, the EU free trade agreements with other countries or groups of countries represent the death of EU agriculture as we know it, according to the protesting farmers.

In the coming days, the European Commission is expected to present a cumulative impact assessment of the trade agreements signed by the EU, from the one with South Korea (signed in 2011) onward.

The EU has just ratified a free trade agreement with New Zealand, signed one with Kenya, and is preparing to sign two others with Chile and Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay).

But the EU-Mercosur is facing tough opposition among member states such as France and Ireland and in the European Parliament. The criticism focuses on the amounts of agricultural imports planned to pour into the EU each year: 99,000 tonnes of beef, 25,000 tonnes of pork, and 180,000 tonnes of poultry and sugar.

The European Commission and Mercosur members would like to “sign the agreement at the next World Trade Organisation ministerial summit, from 26 to 29 February, it is said in the halls of the Commission” after the failure last July, Maxime Combes, economist and a leader of the opposition to the agreement, told Euractiv France.

Furthermore, the vice president of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis said on 23 January on the sidelines of an informal Council of EU trade ministers that the bloc is “negotiating further agreements with India, Indonesia, Australia, Mercosur, Thailand and others”.

“Indeed, a conclusion of negotiations with Mercosur is within reach before the end of this mandate. We work to seize this opportunity, which is of major geopolitical importance”, he added.

On Friday (26 January), the French government reiterated its opposition to the deal in its current form.

French MPs did the same in a letter to President Emmanuel Macron and another, seen by Euractiv France, to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

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No to Mercosur

The free trade agreement between the EU and Mercosur has been on the negotiating table for some 20 years and negotiators found common ground in 2019, before the position of Brazil’s then-president Jair Bolsonaro dampened relations.

However, with the rise to power of socialist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2023, hopes for a swift signing of the deal appeared once again.

After months of silence, France now reiterated its opposition.

“France is clearly opposed to the signing of the Mercosur treaty, as it has been since day one, through the voice of the president of the Republic,” Prime Minister Gabriel Attal declared on Friday (26 January) during a visit to the French region of Haute-Garonne.

In February of last year, President Macron said he would reject the deal if it came into force without so-called ‘mirror clauses’ – requiring to have the obligations the EU imposed on its farmers somewhat reflected on farmers in the Mercosur area – without saying how he would incorporate them into the agreement.

In an effort to ease concerns, the European Commission had proposed that the agreement be accompanied by an additional instrument containing environmental and social measures. But neither the opponents of the agreement nor the South American leaders were happy with this approach.

Germany, Brazil fight to keep EU-Mercosur deal alive

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva committed to concluding the EU-Mercosur trade agreement in Berlin on Monday (4 December), despite the blowback the deal received from France and Argentina.

French MPs call for a “firm no”

Following Attal’s comments, more than 100 MPs from Macron’s presidential majority sent a letter to Commission President von der Leyen, calling for “a firm ‘no’ from the EU to this agreement as it stands”, Pascal Lecamp, a member of Macron’s party and a signatory of the letter, told Euractiv France.

The French decision-makers set out “three red lines”:

“Make the EU-Mercosur agreement conditional on compliance with the parties’ climate commitments; do not lead to an increase in imported deforestation within the EU; and make access for agri-food products to the EU market conditional on compliance with European health and environmental standards via mirror clauses and measures”.

This is not the first time MPs have voted against the agreement since they adopted a resolution against it by a wide margin last June, followed by senators on 16 January.

In addition to the letter to von der Leyen, MPs from across the aisle called on Macron to “say ‘no’ to the conclusion of the agreement” in a letter sent on 23 January.

Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (RN), which was not asked to join the initiative, also said it opposed the agreement.

“We oppose the agreement as long as we have not created an agri-cultural exception, that is to say, more generally the possibility of excluding certain products from the agreements, depending on their impact on French agriculture”, RN spokesperson Andrea Kotarac told Euractiv France.

The party is even calling for a moratorium on free trade, he added.

An EU trade agreement with Mercosur? The answer is still a no!

While negotiations for the EU-Mercosur agreement are currently taking place on a daily basis to speed up the conclusion of the additional protocol, more work needs to be done to match our commitments, writes a group of EU lawmakers.

Doubt over Macron’s opposition

To put an end to the Mercosur agreement in its current form, it would have to be reopened, which the European Commission categorically refuses to do, as do Germany, Portugal and Spain, while Austria’s opposition in principle to the agreement is starting to waver.

French MPs are therefore urging Macron to “put pressure on the European Commission and our neighbours to listen to reason”, following the example of Dutch MPs and MEPs.

At the same time, opponents of the deal doubt that the French government will be strong enough to make its voice heard.

“If France is doing all that is ‘necessary’, why did high-level negotiations take place in Brazil on 25-26 January?” Combes asked on X.

Lecamp told Euractiv France Macron had already “thrown his full weight behind the non-signing of the agreement” last July at a summit of EU and South American countries. “There is no doubt about Mr Macron’s position.”

Foreign and European Affairs Minister Stéphane Séjourné, for his part, stressed on X on Friday he would “continue my fight for trade with fair rules: reciprocity of standards and effective mirror clauses”.

Download the letter sent to Ursula von der Leyen here.

[Edited by Angelo Di Mambro/Zoran Radosavljevic]

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