PARIS — French lawmakers from across the political spectrum voted in favor of a government declaration condemning as “unacceptable” a proposed trade agreement between the European Union and the South American countries of the Mercosur bloc on Tuesday.
A total of 484 out of 577 lawmakers voted to voice their disapproval of the deal, which would create a common market of 800 million people accounting for a fifth of the global economy. Though the vote is symbolic, it sends a clear message of France’s strong aversion to the pact as an increasing number of lawmakers and leaders across Europe come out and oppose it, largely for agricultural reasons.
“Don’t throw the match onto the powder keg, because the blast of such a detonation would travel across the continent,” Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard told lawmakers.
The EU-Mercosur deal is strongly opposed by European farmers who fear that the accord would flood the continent with cheap, arguably lower-quality South American imports, such as Brazilian beef, that they say would put them out of business.
Protests by farmers against the agreement began last week in France. One of the country’s main agricultural unions, the FNSEA, said on Tuesday that the demonstrations would continue this week, while tractors from the Coordination Rurale, another union, have hit the streets near the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
France has been the deal’s most vocal opponent, and efforts by Europe’s second-largest economy to drum up opposition to the pact on agricultural grounds appear to be gaining steam. Tuesday saw Poland come out against the deal, dealing a serious political blow to Ursula von der Leyen, who had hoped to kick off her second term at the helm of the European executive by sealing a deal that has been 25 years in the making.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, speaking before a cabinet meeting earlier on Tuesday, said that his government opposed the agricultural terms of the Mercosur accord. And, using similar language to French President Emmanuel Macron in his hard-fought campaign to stall the deal, Tusk said: “Poland will not accept the agreement with South American countries in its current form.”
Winning the argument?
It’s still far from clear if Paris can rally support to block the deal altogether.
Only Austria, France and Ireland had come out against the trade pact before Tuesday. And even with Poland now on board, the Mercosur deal’s opponents are still short of the 35 percent qualified minority of the European Union’s population that they would need to stop the pact.
The French vote came as European and South American negotiators were due to meet in Brasília for what has been billed as a decisive round of talks on the accord. Hopes had been building in Brussels that it would be possible to shake hands on a final agreement at a summit of the Latin American bloc in early December.
Backing von der Leyen’s renewed push for a deal is her home country, Germany, whose crisis-hit auto industry is in sore need of new export markets. But, since it and 10 other countries signed a letter over the summer urging the EU to wrap up negotiations — or risk losing the Latin American market to China — it has failed to win any more support.
Now, with several more agriculture ministers lobbying their governments to block the pact, it would take only Italy, or a few other smaller countries, to defect to again cripple the deal.
France has been trying to convince Italy to withdraw its support, but the Italian position remains unclear. While Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has said he supports the deal but wants to make sure it won’t harm the interests of Italian farmers, Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida has opposed it in its current version.
Prime Minister Michel Barnier is heading to Rome next month and is expected to discuss the Latin American trade accord with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Camille Gijs, Wojciech Kość and Douglas Busvine contributed to this report.
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