French senators voted on Thursday March 21 against Ceta, a free trade treaty between the European Union and Canada, jeopardizing the ratification of this decried agreement but which the government is in favor of. In an extremely tense climate, they rejected by 211 votes to 44 the first article of the bill relating to this treaty.

It is “a political thunderclap”, a “democratic victory”, savored communist senator Fabien Gay, calling on the government to continue the parliamentary shuttle for this treaty applied provisionally since 2017, but never completely ratified by France.

The communist senators competed in ingenuity to achieve this: an extremely rare occurrence in Parliament, they included in their reserved parliamentary time not one of their legislative proposals, but a government bill authorizing the latter to ratify this famous Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (Ceta), or Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) in French.

Read also Everything you need to know about Ceta, the controversial agreement between the EU and Canada being voted on in the Senate

“I want to denounce in advance what would be a crude maneuver, an unacceptable manipulation with serious consequences for our country,” launched the Minister for Foreign Trade, Franck Riester, at the opening of the debates in the morning.

Signed in 2016 and adopted in 2017 at the European level, Ceta was narrowly validated in the National Assembly in 2019. But the government had never referred it to the Senate, a necessary step in the process.

Left-right alliance of circumstance

Environmentalists, socialists and a large part of the Republican senators, the first group in the Senate, were opposed to this treaty.

Ceta, which notably eliminates customs duties on 98% of products traded between the European Union and Canada, is strongly criticized, in particular by French breeders who report meat imports at cost prices much lower than theirs and produced with less strict methods than those to which they are subject.

Rejection of #CETA by the Senate: "The government must hear the vote that will take place in the Senate. We will have to respect the democratic vote of the entire Parliament", warns the communist senator @fabien_gay pic.twitter.com/ 7PGtp9bjor

— Public Senate (@publicsenat) March 21, 2024

“We are saying stop the unfair competition that we are subjecting to European producers by imposing ever more draconian standards, while turning a blind eye to imported products,” thundered farmer senator LR Laurent Duplomb.

The socialists, for their part, insist on the “renunciation of environmental ambitions” embodied by this agreement, according to their senator Didier Marie.

At the call of a few unions and associations, several dozen people gathered near the Senate on Thursday morning to oppose Ceta, in the presence of several parliamentarians.

For its part, pro-Ceta lobbying has been hyperactive in recent days, recognized several senators, contacted by the Canadian embassy, ​​business leaders or employers' organizations.

The Senate vote “cannot remain a dead letter”

If the government had understood that the game was off to a bad start, Franck Riester tried to convince the Republicans to "not fall into the trap of an incongruous and unnatural alliance with the communists" and to "put the European campaign on hold ".

But mass was said, especially since a motion to send the text back to committee and postpone its examination was rejected by more than 100 votes.

The senatorial refusal is far from trivial, because it will lead to a new examination of the text by the National Assembly. There is also a serious risk of rejection.

The communist group in the Assembly also announced in the wake of the rejection of Ceta by the Senate that it was ready to put the examination of the text in its parliamentary slot on May 30, that is to say ten days before the European elections. The Senate's vote "cannot remain a dead letter", said the communist deputies in a press release. “The confirmation by the National Assembly of the rejection of Ceta will make it possible to put an end to its application,” they judged.

However, if a national Parliament were to declare the non-ratification of the treaty, this would call into question its provisional application across Europe. On condition, however, that the French government notifies Brussels of the decision of its Parliament.

Currently, ten member states have not completed the ratification process, and only one has rejected it: Cyprus. But Nicosia never notified the European Union of this rejection, which allows the agreement to continue to apply.

With AFP

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