France instructs independent experts to analyze EU-Mercosur agreement | Internationale

France had declared that it would look in the air at the agreement reached between the European Union and Mercosur at the end of June, after 20 years of negotiations, and it was not until Was not acting a bluff. Prime Minister Édouard Philippe on Monday appointed a "commission of independent experts" to badyze the agreement and develop a "comprehensive and transparent badessment" of the commercial project. His opinion will weigh on the final position of Paris when the time comes, still distant, to ratify, said the government.

Chaired by Stefan Ambec, environmental economist at the School of Economics of Toulouse and director of research at the National Institute of Agricultural Research of France (INRA), the commission is composed of a total of ten recognized scientific specialists in the fields of environment, trade, agriculture and health. legal, social and geopolitical ". Their task is to make recommendations to "respond to the risks" that they identify when badyzing the agreement. To that end, the commission will badyze, first and foremost, the issues of greatest concern to Paris: the effects of the agreement on greenhouse gases, deforestation and biodiversity, according to Matignon, the Prime Minister's seat. It must also evaluate the consequences of the pact on the ability of states and the EU to "regulate and apply its standards to products consumed on the European market".

Paris lifted the brake that had long been the main obstacle to the EU-Mercosur deal, but recalled immediately after the three "red lines" that it imposed, with particular focus on Brazil by Jair Bolsonaro in environmental matters. To ratify any document, France requires an "explicit recognition of the Paris Agreement" on the 2015 climate, a "respect for environmental and health standards" and a "safeguard clause" for agricultural products in more sensitive: meat, sugar and poultry.

The commission is due to report in November of this year. They will be made public and should "objectively clarify the challenges of the agreement to fuel the public debate and prepare France's position on the EU Council," said the government, which will also conduct a "study." quantitative impact "and specific work. sensitive sectors to complete their diagnosis.

The creation of the commission is known a week after the National Assembly ratified another controversial agreement in France, CETA, with Canada. Since then, at least seven offices of deputies of the government party La República en Marcha (LREM) who voted in favor of the free trade agreement have suffered damage to varying degrees. The latest victim of these attacks is the vice president of the National Assembly, Carole Bureau-Bonnard, on Monday, as the legislator denounced on his Twitter account.