Paris (AFP)
In announcing the opposition of France to the EU-Mercosur agreement, against the backdrop of environmental disagreement with Brazil, Emmanuel Macron threatens to bury a treaty that embarrasses until his own majority, thus fueling a trial in "hypocrisy" instructed by the opposition.
On the eve of the G7 in Biarritz and as international attention is turned to the Amazon rain-ravaged forest, Emmanuel Macron seized a perfect opportunity to possibly sign the death sentence of an embarrassing legacy: the treaty of free -exchange between the European Union and the four Mercosur countries (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay) whose negotiations suddenly came to an end at the end of June after 20 years of negotiations.
"Given the attitude of Brazil in recent weeks, the President of the Republic can not but note that President Bolsonaro lied to him at the summit (G20, ed) of Osaka" late June, said Friday. Elysée, saying that "President Bolsonaro has decided not to respect his climate commitments or to commit to biodiversity".
Source of anger displayed by Mr. Macron, "ecocide" under way in the Amazon and the need to "stop a process of industrialized deforestation". "Very concretely, the Amazon is burning and it is a question that concerns the whole world," he pleaded the head of state, ensuring having "very profoundly changed" on ecological issues, in an interview to the online media Konbini.
"In these circumstances, France is opposed to the Mercosur agreement as it stands," the French presidency said, much to Berlin's dismay, which considers the response "not appropriate". A definitive veto of Paris would suffice to bury the text because it must be approved by each Member State.
This position was generally welcomed on Friday, starting with the farmers but also the presidential majority. It had not masked its internal divisions when the Assembly adopted in July Ceta, the free trade agreement with Canada (52 abstentions, 9 votes against LREM), already on environmental issues . However, this reluctance was increased tenfold on the agreement with Mercosur, with increased pressure from the agricultural sector worried about the future of certain sectors (beef, poultry ...).
Aware of the lukewarmness of the troops, the executive had activated the handbrake at the beginning of July by asking for "acts" and not just "declarative" to Jair Bolsonaro, according to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian, while Matignon set up an evaluation commission to study the environmental impact of the treaty.
- "The string is big" -
"We were 75 LREM deputies to consider that this agreement in the state was not tenable.Today, clearly the President of the Republic makes the choice of the climate and the right exchange", emphasized Friday the spokesperson of the Presidential Party and Yvelines MP Aurore Bergé.
"This is a legitimate and welcome opposition, I am very pleased about it," LREM MEP Pascal Canfin, a former WWF boss, told AFP, warning that the vote by MEPs in favor of of the agreement was "not acquired".
For his part, the former minister of ecological transition Nicolas Hulot, who resigned in August 2018, hailed a "first essential step". "It must be followed by trade sanctions that ban imports of Brazilian agricultural products in an attempt to stop deforestation," said Hulot.
But for the opposition, whose MEP France insubordinate Manon Aubry, "the string is big". "Only Macron could imagine that Bolsonaro was an ecologist," LFI again mocked in a statement, while hailing "a victory of the social and ecological fight against free trade."
"But we can only treat her as a hypocrite if at the same time Emmanuel Macron does not return to other ecocides treaties," continue the Insuban.
At the EELV Summer School in Toulouse, MEP Yannick Jadot stressed that Mr Bolsonaro "has slaughtered the Amazon" since taking office. "So consider that today his complacency vis-à-vis fires (...) is a lie, I think it's exaggerated," he continued, calling Emmanuel Macron to pronounce "a embargo on imports of transgenic soybeans ".
© 2019 AFP