Ceta, a free trade treaty between the European Union and Canada, is “a very good agreement” for the “key categories” of French agriculture, Emmanuel Macron declared on Friday from Brussels, the day after the rejection by the Senate of the Ceta ratification project. Citing the benefits of the agreement for the French “milk”, “cheese” or “wine” sectors, the Head of State called not to “put all free trade agreements in the same bag”. -exchange. “It’s demagoguery,” he again denounced during a press conference following a European Council.
“The figures demonstrate (the) considerable success” of Ceta, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen also commented on Friday during a press conference. She said she took “note” of the senatorial vote, and called to see “how France would deal” with this result. A coalition of senators from the right and the left, at the initiative of elected communist officials, achieved a political tour de force on Thursday by putting to the vote the ratification bill that the government had until now never included in the agenda of the upper house.
A maneuver intended to reject the part of the text dedicated to Ceta, and to inflict a setback on the government on this sensitive subject in the midst of the agricultural crisis and a few months before the European elections. “People who today are fighting it hand on heart are the ones who signed it and everyone forgets that we have greatly improved it,” the head of state also criticized, referring to the elected socialists who voted against the draft ratification of the treaty, which had been concluded during the presidency of François Hollande.
“I appeal to the French agricultural world. Is Ceta good or bad for our agriculture? (…) It is very good for milk, it is very good for cheese, it is very good for wine, it is very good in all the key categories,” supported Emmanuel Macron. “Those who could take resolutions against Ceta would be Canadians with us,” he continued. The Senate vote “has no consequences on the provisional implementation of Ceta”, also recalled Emmanuel Macron. The communist deputies announced on Thursday the intention to open the front in the Assembly by taking up the text of their senator counterparts on May 30, 10 days before the European elections, but the government seems to want to procrastinate and could delay in submitting the text on the Assembly table.
