French MPs are putting pressure on France over Mercosur deal

French MPs in Strasbourg and Paris are putting pressure on France to oppose the Mercosur trade deal amid fear that the EU may seek to close a deal this year, according to a recent letter seen by Euronews and politicians working on the deal.

Negotiations between the EU and the Mercosur countries – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay – to lift trade barriers such as tariffs to create a free trade area began almost 20 years ago with the aim of creating trade area covering 780 million people and annual exports and imports worth between €40 and €45 billions.

 A deal over Mercosur was reached in 2019, but several EU member states blocked it over the lack of environmental commitments contained in the draft agreement. The impact on EU agriculture was also a concern as the EU would commit to opening its markets with lower tariffs for quotas of goods such as beef, sugar and poultry coming from South America.

 Since then, the Commission claims the negotiations never stopped, with the Mercosur countries organising several rounds of negotiations in Brazil in 2024, the last one taking place at the beginning of this month. Under pressure from French farmers,French president Emmanuel Macron has frequently spoken out against the agreement. The deal is supported by the Commission with a majority of EU member states, however, keen to access new markets and break the EU’s dependency on China.

 In a letter sent to French Prime Minister Michel Barnier on 10 october seen by Euronews some French green MEPs called for France to oppose the negotiation mandate of the European Commission and to build a blocking minority within the EU Council against the agreement.

 According to the French greens, backed by some Belgian, Dutch, Italian and Spanish MEPs, the agreement would be “deleterious for biodiversity and forests, but also for farmers and employees who see themselves in an unfair competition with markets where environmental and social standards are lower.”

 French MP Pascal Lecamp, representing the liberal Les Democrates group, has led French opposition to the Mercosur deal and spearheaded a resolution adopted in June 2023 by the French National Assembly calling for the deal to respect European production and environmental standards.

 “My political group met Michel Barnier just before he was appointed prime minister; we got an assurance that he opposed the deal,” Lecamp told Euronews.

 “We can make trade with South America in plenty of sectors, but it’s impossible on agriculture if we want to keep 500,000 farms in France and keep our food sovereignty,” Lecamp said, adding that he intends to ramp up pressure on the French government as the year ends with a deal looming.

 The Mercosur agreement includes trade and political components – meaning it would require ratification in national parliaments as well as at EU level – but French politicians concerned that the trade element could be hived off into an agreement over which the EU has sole competence for ratification. Lecamp’s 2023 resolution flagged this risk, warning: “We would not accept that the agreement is forced through, with no national ratification.”

 If the Commission does close a deal with South America, the European Parliament will need to approve it, and French MEPs there are also dialling up opposition. French Renew MEP Marie-Pierre Vedrenne, a member of the Parliament’s trade committee, told Euronews she detected a change of pulse among colleagues since the June European election.

Vedrenne hails from the agricultural bedrock of Brittany. In 2020 she succeeded in persuading Spanish Renew colleagues to buck the trend of Spain – which has been broadly supportive of Mercosur – in backing an amendment opposing the adoption of the trade deal unless strong environmental guarantees were in place.

Today, she wonders if the MEPs would vote the same way. “On this topic, the new parliament is volatile. We don’t know how the European Conservatives and Reformists Group would vote. What about the S&D? Are they all behind the Germans and Spanish?” 

“We have to put the pressure before the deal is closed,” said French Green MEP Majdouline Sbaï, noting an urgency to stop the negotiations. 

“As it stands (it) is not an acceptable treaty,” President Macron said this week, when quizzed about the deal after the EU Council summit, underlining the sensitivity of Mercosur within French domestic political debate.

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“We are calling for substantial compliance with the Paris agreements, mirror clauses and the protection of European interests, industries and farmers, because it’s a question of a level playing field,” Macron added.