Ursula von der Leyen is in a standoff with Paris. And the current angry subject concerns the discussions around an agreement between the European Union and the Mercosur countries. If France continues to express its firm opposition, the President of the Commission for her part estimated on Sunday that the negotiations were “in the home stretch”.
During an interview with the Brazilian news channel GloboNews on the eve of the G20 summit, in which she will participate this Monday and Tuesday in Rio de Janeiro, the leader nevertheless admitted that convincing all the countries of the two blocs to sign this free trade treaty was “an arduous task”.
“The devil is always in the details”
“We must include all 27 heads of state and government of EU member states, and, on the Mercosur side, all members must be equally ready to sign,” she said. “The devil is always in the details,” she insisted. “The final stretch is the most important, but it is also often the most difficult.”
This free trade agreement between the EU and the four founding members of Mercosur (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay) has been in the works for more than two decades. After a “political” agreement sealed in 2019 between the EU and the Mercosur countries, the opposition of several countries, including France, blocked its final adoption, even if countries like Germany and Spain hope that It will be signed by the end of the year.
Macron insists on his refusal to sign
“I want to reassure all our farmers: we will not give up our food sovereignty. France will not support the EU-Mercosur agreement in its current version,” Emmanuel Macron wrote on Sunday on X, after his meeting in Buenos Aires with his Argentine counterpart Javier Milei, before going to Rio for the summit of the G20.
Strongly mobilized against this agreement, French farmers fear a surge of Latin American meat in Europe and warn of unfair competition from products not subject to the strict environmental and health standards in force in the EU.
Source: www.20minutes.fr
