2024-11-14 17:51:00
Farmers back on the streets. Almost a year after a historic mobilization, agricultural unions are once again calling for demonstrations from Monday, November 18.
The objective: to denounce, as in January, bureaucracy and low income, but, above all, to firmly oppose the possible signing of an agreement between the European Union and Mercosur.
Under discussion for 20 years, this agreement between the 27 of the EU and the Latin American countries of Mercosur (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) must in fact be on the discussion table again during the G20, which will start on November 18 in Brazil. France 24 returns to the issues of this treaty.
Also readFaced with the distress of the agricultural world, the questioning of free trade agreements
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What is the EU-Mercosur Treaty?
Mercosur, short for “Southern Common Market”, is a free trade agreement created in 1991 by Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, and joined in 2023 by Bolivia. Several other countries are attached to it and are considered associated states: Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru and Suriname. Between 2012 and 2016, Venezuela was briefly a member of the trade alliance.
The European Union wants to set up a free trade treaty, that is to say a commercial partnership to facilitate the movement of goods and services with the South American bloc. This would create the largest free trade zone on the planet, with a market encompassing 780 million people.
In detail, the EU-Mercosur agreement aims to eliminate more than 90% of customs duties between the European market and that of Mercosur on numerous industrial and agricultural products. The whole would represent a total volume of “between 40 and 45 billion euros of imports and exports” per year, according to public-life.
In other words, European companies could more easily export industrial products and services, particularly in the fields of automobiles, chemicals and even pharmaceuticals. In return, the Mercosur countries could export agricultural and food products, meat, sugar, rice, honey, soya… Hence the frequent nickname of the “meat for cars” agreement.
Quotas for products imported duty-free from South America would be introduced. They concern, for example, sugar (180,000 tonnes per year), poultry (100,000 tonnes per year), beef (99,000 tonnes) or even rice (60,000 tonnes), depending on the complete list. On the other hand, the Mercosur countries would waive numerous taxes imposed on several European products such as chocolate, wine, biscuits, spirits and even soft drinks. Certain dairy products such as cheeses are also affected.
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Why does the EU want this agreement?
The project, discussed since 1999, had already almost come to fruition in 2019 but was ultimately never ratified.
This time, the EU seems determined to sign it by the end of the year, during the next G20 summit which will be held on November 18 and 19 in Brazil. Subsequently, in December, a Mercosur summit must be held.
The first argument is commercial: the treaty would offer European companies an outlet for 270 million consumers. Once in force, it would “increase the EU’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 15 billion euros and that of the Mercosur countries by 11.4 billion euros”, assured Trade Commissioner Valdis. Dombrovskis, chief negotiator on the European side.
But beyond the economic aspect, there is also a strategic and geopolitical dimension, detailed last January Elvire Fabry, researcher at the European Jacques Delors Institute, evoking in particular issues around strategic minerals – lithium, copper, iron , cobalt…
We are in a context “where the EU is seeking to secure its supplies of strategic minerals. Brazil’s lithium resources should not be overlookedcobalt, graphite, etc.,” she explained.
“If we do not conclude an agreement with them (the Mercosur countries), this vacuum will be filled by China,” also warned the future head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas.
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What do French farmers blame him for?
It’s precisely the food aspect of the latest version of the text, established in 2019which particularly worries French farmers.
At a time when Brussels is pushing farmers to accelerate the ecological transitionthey fear that the agreement will open the door to massive imports, at more competitive prices, of products that do not meet the same environmental and social standards as those originating in Europe.
“Unfair competition”, they summarize, pointing in particular to the breeding conditions practiced in South America, with the use of GMO fodder or even the use of growth-stimulating antibiotics.
“We are talking about beef with hormones, chickens that boost growth (…) Europe must not be a sieve and it cannot import products that do not meet any of our standards. We do not want an agriculture that “We refuse to produce in Europe”, denounced, Wednesday November 13, Arnaud Rousseau, the president of the FNSEA, one of the main agricultural unions.
From Wednesday, around twenty farmers placed around a hundred municipal signs in front of the sub-prefecture of Boulogne-sur-Mer (Pas-de-Calais). They denounce the risk “of letting meat come from nowhere (…) and that our farms disappear” explained Vincent Bertin, cattle breeder and local head of the FDSEA.
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What is the position of the French government?
It is a rare unanimity, but the agricultural world and the political world are in the same camp to express their opposition to the treaty.
The French government is therefore putting pressure on the agreement to include three conditions: not increasing deforestation imported into the EU, bringing the agreement into line with the Paris climate agreement (2015) and introduce mirror measures in health and environmental matters. In other words, require Mercosur to respect the same environmental and health standards.
“This agreement, under current conditions, is not acceptable to France and it will not be,” insisted French Prime Minister Michel Barnier on Wednesday evening in Brussels, following a meeting with the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen.
“This agreement which goes against everything we do to save our agriculture is not acceptable”, for their part denounced in the newspaper Le Monde more than 600 parliamentarians – deputies, senators and European deputies.
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What is the position of other European countries?
Germany and Spain are in favor of the proposed agreement between Europe and Mercosur. Poland and Austria have regularly expressed their opposition.
Germany, in recession for two years now, and whose main driving force is exports, sees in Mercosur a fantastic opportunity to sell its cars and machines. A vision necessarily far from France, whose agricultural weight is twice as high as across the Rhine.
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Can the negotiations collapse?
“We are using all means, including institutional and voting means at the European level, so that Mercosur as it stands does not pass,” assured Thursday the Minister of the Economy, Antoine Armand, during an interview with Sud Radio, adding that “we convince our partners who can sometimes hesitate”.
To block the decision, France must bring together a blocking minority within the European Council of at least four countries.
If, as it stands, it seems complicated, some in Brussels want to believe it, judging that countries like Italy, Ireland or the Netherlands can tip the scales. But these countries are reserving their position for the moment, according to diplomatic sources in Brussels.
“We are organizing with European countries to make people understand the danger that this agreement would represent,” Antoine Armand insisted on Thursday, insisting that “France is totally determined (…) that Mercosur is not signed as it stands.”
The agreement must also be ratified by the European Parliament. Again, no certainty. Opposition to the Mercosur agreement, shared by the overwhelming majority of French MEPs, all political tendencies combined, is in the minority, according to one of them.
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