“I have the impression that the right-wing senators are going to join the communists…” The Minister Delegate in charge of Foreign Trade Franck Riester was not very optimistic about the outcome of the vote for the ratification of Ceta in Senate this Thursday March 21, at the microphone of RFI. Right and far left could thus find themselves in a heterogeneous alliance to block this European free trade agreement with Canada, although it has already been implemented since 2017.
“We want to exploit an agreement that is good for our farmers,” criticized the minister, believing that the right is turning its back for electoral purposes, less than three months before the European elections scheduled for June 9. He invited them to “put aside electoral interest” to “defend the interest of our country” and “of our exporting farmers”. He also called on socialist senators for “consistency”, believing that those who would oppose the text today “are the same ones who supported François Hollande” at the time of the negotiations.
Ceta, which provides for reduced customs duties on many products including food products, has already been applied provisionally since 2017, pending its ratification which must take place in all Member States, after having been approved by the European Parliament . The National Assembly approved it in 2019 with pain, but it never reached the Senate. It was the communists who put it on the agenda.
But the subject is highly flammable while agricultural anger still simmers. Free trade agreements, seen as unfair competition, were at the heart of their demands at the height of the discontent in January. If the government had reaffirmed its opposition to the agreement with Mercosur, it continues to defend Ceta. Franck Riester thus ensures that he offers French farmers opportunities in Canada while imposing “mirror measures” prohibiting the importation of Canadian products that do not meet European standards, such as beef with hormones for example.
