UK farmers protest… French farmers revolt… Macron jets off to Rio for a week

French government of Michel Barnier adamant in blocking massive EU trade deal with South America

Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2024

Macron flies to South America for a week, for G20 Summit and to stall von der Leyen’s plans

Yesterday (Mon 18 Nov 2024) French President Emmanuel Macron jetted off to sunny Rio de Janeiro to attend the G20 Summit and to make a last ditch effort to stop the EU’s proposed trade deal with five large South American countries.

Meanwhile, back home, French farmers are once again taking to the streets in a revolt against what they see as the imminent dumping of cheaper agricultural products into the French market, endangering their livelihoods.

In the UK, farmers have been incensed by what some of them are referring to as Rachel Reeves’ “death tax”, or “tractor tax”. Demonstrations have been taking place across the country and more are planned for today, protesting the Chancellor’s plans to impose new inheritance taxes on the transfer of family farms from one generation to the next. On Saturday morning (16 Nov 2024) angry farmers descended on the Welsh Labour Party conference in Llandudno with more than 100 tractors and farm vehicles in protest.

Farmers protesting at the Welsh Labour Conference, Llandudno, 16 Nov 2024, Credit : Rob Formstone

“Disastrous” deal for farmers, says French PM Michel Barnier, adding France could “explode”

Macron

In this report we focus on France where farmers are in open revolt, and have been for years.

We report on the serious spat which has developed between French President Emmanuel Macron and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Barnier

This relates to a potentially imminent free trade agreement between the EU and the ‘Mercosur’ countries, which has been an almost unbelievable 25+ years in the making. French farmers are up in arms, in a country where the farming lobby is very powerful indeed.

What is ‘Mercosur’ and why is it causing farmers to revolt?

Here is what the EU Commission currently claims on its website.

“The EU-Mercosur negotiations started in 2000”
[Not true. They started in June 2019 – Ed.]
“ - and over the years experienced different phases.
“In May 2016, the EU and Mercosur relaunched the negotiation process, exchanged new market access offers, and intensified the pace of negotiations by holding negotiation rounds and meetings at regular intervals.”

“On 28 June 2019, the European Union and Mercosur reached a political agreement for an ambitious, balanced and comprehensive trade agreement.”

This is disinformation as we show below, but first we ask why French farmers are revolting

Nicknamed “cows for cars”, if it is ever agreed and ratified this deal would allow increased access to EU markets of Mercosur agricultural goods, including beef, soy, poultry, sugar, and ethanol, in exchange for facilitated access to Mercosur markets for EU cars (mostly German), chemicals (mostly German), and other manufactured goods (mostly German).

On Thursday (14 Nov 2024) the Elysee Palace was adamant about France’s rejection of the deal.

“French authorities have been clear. The President has said it, the Prime Minister has said it: the agreement is not acceptable as it is.”
“Our demands are known.”

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The government’s Trade Minister, Sophie Primas, went further, telling journalists that if the EU signs this trade deal it would represent :-

“A breach in the trust of the French people in Europe.
“If Mercosur goes through without the approval of the two branches of the French parliament and without the support of public opinion, that will have serious political consequences.”

The Leader of 'Génération Frexit' and the 'Reprenons Le Contrôle' party, Charles-Henri Gallois, commented on our report

"The EU Mercosur free trade deal is the final nail in French farmers’ coffin. EU policy aims at killing farmers. On one side they impose a crazy regulatory framework with EU directives and the program 'Farm to Fork'. It kills farmers' competitivity and lowers production.
"On the other hand they sign free trade deals with the whole planet, importing foods from countries which do not respect the same standards."
- Charles-Henri Gallois, commenting exclusively to Facts4EU and CIBUK, 18 Nov 2024

The Leader of the Mouvement Politique Citoyen party, Philippe Murer, also commented on our report

"We are completely opposed to the EU Mercosur agreement. The Mercosur agreement will bring Brazilian meat, chicken and beef, produced in factory farms with growth promoters and antibiotics, to France, with the deforestation of the Amazon as a bonus.
"And will destroy our breeders who produce on family farms. An absurdity."
- Philippe Murer, commenting exclusively to Facts4EU and CIBUK, 18 Nov 2024

Here is what the French farmers have to say :-

"This trade agreement, which links part of the South American states to Europe, risks having dramatic consequences for agriculture. So we will be in all regions from Monday, for a few days, to make the voice of France heard at the time of the G20 in Brazil.”
- FNSEA's Arnaud Rousseau, France Inter, 13 Nov 2024

Whilst this time French farmers have said they will not block motorways and trunk roads into Paris and other cities as they have previously done, protests are nevertheless due to take place across France this week.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

Mercosur - 25 years of talks

"It takes two to tango in South America"

In 2019 this deal was triumphantly announced by the EU Commission, then led by Jean-Claude Juncker, after more than 20 years of talks. Bizarrely the announcement was made in Osaka, Japan.

“We stand before you as the proud co-owners of a trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur.
“I like to use words with care but this is a truly historic moment. This agreement has been two decades in the making. The negotiations started 20 years ago yesterday – on 28 June 1999 in Rio de Janeiro! They have been long – and often tough – and we've come close before, but today we finally delivered.”
- EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Osaka, 29 June 2019

To this day the EU Commission’s website continues to parade the following :-

“The EU has concluded a trade agreement with the four founding members of Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay) as part of a bi-regional Association Agreement.”
“On 28 June 2019, the European Union and Mercosur reached a political agreement for an ambitious, balanced and comprehensive trade agreement covering issues such as tariffs; rules of origin; technical barriers to trade; sanitary and phytosanitary measures; services; government procurement; intellectual property; sustainable development, and; small- and medium-sized enterprises.”

Jean-Claude Juncker and his EU Commission spoke too soon. It simply was not true that they had concluded a trade deal – and it still has not been concluded. This constitutes gross disinformation.

Observations

The United Kingdom Government of Sir Keir Starmer is not the only one to have got into trouble for its handling of the agriculture industry. In the UK, pressure continues to mount on Chancellor Rachel Reeves to reverse her tax grab on family farmers. In France, it seems the government there is doing all it can to address French farmers' anger at the proposed new EU-Mercosur free trade agreement.

President Macron and his Prime Minister Michel Barnier have spoken out in the strongest terms against this new, proposed EU Commission-imposed deal. As EU Members, however, they have no longer have any power of veto over such matters. We will watch with interest how President Macron manages to finagle his way out of this one. One thing is certain. French farmers are livid. If this trade deal is imposed by the EU Commission, we will be seeing protests in every French city of a scale unseen in the United Kingdom.

The Commission, disinformation, and state-sponsored censorship

The EU Commission has a habit of 'pre-announcing' trade deals to much fanfare - generally many times and over many months or even years - only for these to unravel prior to implementation.

A case in point is the EU-Mercosur trade deal. The EU started negotiating just over 25 years ago. Since then they have produced many positive announcements, including the grand signing five years ago. Heralded many times by the EU Commission as a success, it was derailed completely at the last minute due to a change in government in one of the Mercosur countries, who then refused to ratify it. On top of this, some EU countries (eg France) are now opposed to it. The result is now a complete impasse.

Finally, it is ironic that the Commission has been spending time on new anti-disinformation laws when it is, itself, guilty. We consider an EU world where free speech is under attack and where differing opinions are in effect being censored by the state to be a chilling world indeed.

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[ Sources: Elysee Palace | EU Commission | French media ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Tues 19 Nov 2024

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Reader Comments 7

1. Ashley Great Britain , Tuesday, November 19, 2024, 07:13:

If the EU really wanted a trade deal with South America it would have happened by now.
One or two years should have been the time frame.
Funny how they are now trying desperately to ram it through as Britain is expanding its trade horizons.
-
Labour are still in cahoots with the EU as can be seen with equally absurd agricultural policies.
-
The Eu's system clearly doesn't work. They can't get agreement between them because every country deep down wants the best for themselves. There's always infighting especially between France and Germany.
-
Either way if they do or don't sign the mercosur deal it will be very damaging for the EU.

2. Sparky , Tuesday, November 19, 2024, 08:00:

A bit rich to be criticising the EU for a trade deal that has an impact on French Farming when the Brexit resulted in a rushed through trade deal with Australia in a desperate attempt to show some progress on Brexit which is a poor deal for UK farming. In the UK Australia trade deal sectors like beef and lamb, dairy and horticulture, over time there will be no limit to the number of goods Australia and New Zealand can export to the UK whilst there is little the trade deal does to benefit British farmers. And a Brexit deal that makes it harder and causes delays for exports and imports to and from the EU.

3. Gazzablack , Tuesday, November 19, 2024, 08:37:

2, sparkless
.
Australia and New Zealand don't take up anywhere near their full quotas of tariff free meat and dairy now, and there's no reason to expect them to do so when those quotas increase.
.
But we do currently import vast quantities of Irish beef tariff free.
If anyone needs to worry about competition from the Aussies, it should be the Irish.

4. KB , Tuesday, November 19, 2024, 12:17:

This article shows the extreme difficulty for the EU of concluding any meaningful trade agreements.
The EU countries all have different interests.

5. Sparky , Tuesday, November 19, 2024, 17:54:

This deal by the EU shows how stupid it was for the UK to leave the EU. Total CPTPP economies are have a GDP $13.5 trillion whilst MERCOSUR countries have a total GDP of around $5.7 trillion but the UK already has FTA with most of the CPTPP countries as the rollover deals that the EU already had. Of course Australia and New Zealand are the biggest FTA's since leaving the EU but the UK has already admitted it gave too much away to get those deals done.

6. Chris , Tuesday, November 19, 2024, 19:06:

5 Sparky..
Australia walked away from a trade deal with the EU...
After 20 years of negotiations....

7. Gazzablack , Tuesday, November 19, 2024, 19:20:

4, KB
.
Modern comprehensive trade agreements often cover areas of policy that do not (yet) sit within the remit of the EU to be able to negotiate and agree to - meaning that member states themselves also have to sign them off, causing years of delays and ultimately a limited scope of ambition during negotiations.
.
.
And something to pique Sparky's interest
Marc Touati, France's leading economist, is taking the risk of predicting the end of the Eurozone by the end of 2025.
.
("The UK has already admitted it gave too much away") another sparky fantasy.
.
Now pay attention Hiroo.
The EU hasn't secured a working FTA with Mercusor, and isn't likely to either.
Remember, the Canada FTA isn't in force yet.
.
The thing is, the UK has FTA's with almost EVERY country that it had as an EU member, but without having to pay the EU for them.

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