Mega trade deal sends French farmers into a tizzy

As the ink was drying on one of the world’s largest trade deals, signed in Uruguay this month and hailed as a milestone for the global economy, anger was brewing thousands of miles away in France.

Below agreement Between the EU on the one hand and Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay on the other, tariffs will be greatly reduced and import and export volumes will be increased.

This deal will affect about 80 crore people.

This is in stark contrast to Donald Trump’s plans to increase protectionism when he returns to the White House next month.

The deal still needs to be approved by the 27 EU member states, and France plans to block it over fears it would hurt its agricultural sector.

French farmer Alix Hurtault, 34, says she fears for her future if the planned deal goes ahead.

“I fear this agreement will make it even more difficult for farmers like me to make a living,” she says.

As a result, she is crossing her fingers that the French government will be able to stop it.

The planned trade agreement would mean more South American beef, chicken and sugar coming to the EU, and at lower prices. While in the opposite direction, European companies such as cars, clothing and wine will have greater access to the Mercosur region.

France would have to persuade at least three other EU countries, representing at least 35% of the total population, to join it to block the deal. Ireland, Poland and Austria are also in opposition, but Italy would need to join in to achieve the required population quota.

And with the media giving very contradictory reports about the situation in Italy, we will have to wait and see which way Italians go when they vote in 2025.

Meanwhile, French farmers are pressuring Paris not to back down. French President Emmanuel Macron is listening, and has called the trade deal “unacceptable in its current form.”

Ms Hurtault grows sugar beets, wheat and barley on a 150-hectare farm in the small village of Villeneuve-sur-Auvers, 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of Paris.

She says the deal to help EU producers will hurt French farmers. “It seems like we are getting a bargain. Farmers in the Mercosur countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay are the name of the bloc) have fewer restrictions regarding pesticides and lower labor costs.”

Ms Hurtault’s views are widely held across the French agricultural sector, where regular protests have taken place in recent months.

A few weeks ago about 200 farmers dumped bales of straw in front of the Grand Palais museum and exhibition center in Paris.

They lit red torches and raised slogans such as “We are feeding you, give us some respect”.

The protest was organized to coincide with the annual meeting of commodity importers and exporters taking place at the site.

Stéphane Galais, national secretary of the cattle herders and farmers’ union Confederation Paysen, which organized the event, explained why it was being organised.

“Today’s demonstration is a stance against free trade, particularly the EU-Mercosur agreement, which we have been opposing since it was first discussed in the late 1990s,” he said.

While France is opposing the trade deal, other European countries like Germany, Spain and Portugal are in favor of it.

Supporters welcome the fact that it would be a sharp contrast to Trump’s threats of increasing protectionism.

“This would be a good sign at a time when we are moving in the opposite direction of economic fragmentation and protectionism, especially with the re-election of free trade-skeptic US President Donald Trump,” says Uri Dadush, a trade policy research professor. With being.” University of Maryland in the US.

Professor Dadush says that although there will be a negative impact on European farmers, he says it will be very limited.

“This deal is a threat to European farmers because the world’s most competitive agricultural sector has gained access to their markets, but we are talking about a small amount of liberalization spread over a long period of time,” he says.

He points out that under the agreement Mercosur countries will still have limits on what they can export to the EU. As such their proposed initial increased annual quota of beef exports still amounts to less than 1% of EU meat consumption.

Professor Dadusha says that “this deal is an opportunity to pursue much-needed market-oriented reform in the heavily-subsidized EU agricultural sector and Mercosur’s highly protected factory sector”.

Chris Hagedorn, an assistant professor of global food policies at the Paris-based University of Sciences Po and former secretary of the UN Committee on World Food Security, says the agreement will be beneficial for Europe overall – including its farmers.

“It obviously depends on the subcategory you’re looking at, but French cheese and wine producers will benefit,” he says.

He further said that it would also improve health and environmental standards in Mercosur countries, and enhance relations with the EU at a time when “China is also trying to gain a foothold in Latin America”.

But David Cayla, an economics lecturer at the University of Angers in western France and a member of the left-wing group “The Dismayed Economists,” is skeptical that the EU will be able to enforce higher standards in Latin American countries.

“It is impossible to control their implementation,” he says. “Our farmers will only face increasing competition from countries with better climates and more fertile soils.

“But we need to protect European agriculture – it is also a question of food sovereignty,” he stressed, adding that the Covid-19 pandemic had shown how quickly supply chains around the world can collapse in times of crisis.

Antoine Gomel, who in 2017 acquired his family’s 24-hectare chicken and beef farm in a small village near Boulogne-sur-Mer in northern France, says opposition to the trade deal is about saving the French countryside. Is in.

“Farms are disappearing and our villages are becoming deserted – the agreement will accelerate this,” says the 42-year-old.

“But farms are important for cohesion in rural areas, not least because they create jobs. People in France and abroad increasingly vote for the far right because they feel disoriented and lonely.

“Farms can contribute to bringing them back together by literally connecting them together.”

In front of the Grand Palace in Paris, cleaners are removing straw left by protesters.

Farmer Stephen Gallas was still nearby and watching them. “The EU-Mercosur deal is extremely damaging and it would be truly symbolic if EU member states do not ratify it,” he said.