The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, said this Thursday (1st) that his country will continue to oppose the free trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and Mercosur because, in its current state, according to him, it would allow the import of products that do not follow European rules.
“What is incomprehensible, and which I myself cannot explain, is that we impose rules on what we produce in Europe and allow products to be imported that do not respect these same rules and that come from outside Europe,” Macron said during a press conference after the EU leaders' summit held in Brussels.
Macron insisted that the rules that apply to agricultural production in the EU must also apply to imports from countries outside the bloc. “For this very reason, today, with the (current) state of the Mercosur text, France opposes and will continue to oppose this free trade agreement with the Mercosur region,” he said, in addition to reiterating that health and Environmental issues must be the same for Europeans and for partners with whom trade pacts are signed.
Asked whether France is isolated in the bloc by rejecting the pact with Mercosur, Macron stated that the country, “alone”, does not decide on the agreement, nor can it block it on its own.
However, he stressed that whenever Paris “raised its voice and showed the inconsistencies” of the agreement, it was followed by others. “I'm not against trade agreements by definition. I'm simply against free trade when it's the law of the jungle. That's not my view of things,” he said.
“European producers cannot be asked to accept respecting more rules and, at the same time, continue to negotiate free trade agreements as we did in the 90s, which is exactly the Mercosur model,” he added.
Macron said that France is in favor of negotiating new generation agreements, such as those made with New Zealand and Chile, but the model discussed with Mercosur “is not explainable”.
He recognized that Mercosur is a very important region for the EU's agricultural and industrial trade, but also that it is possible to trade without concluding free trade agreements, although he said that he is not in favor of Europe “closing in on itself own”.
The rejection of free trade agreements such as the one discussed with Mercosur is one of the issues that have led farmers to demonstrate in several EU countries in recent weeks. (With EFE Agency)
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