France persuaded the European Union to postpone trade deals with New Zealand and Chile until the French presidential elections in April, and has thus angered other EU countries. This was reported by the Financial Times, citing sources on November 11.
According to the newspaper, France’s decision to postpone two trade agreements “angered” the bloc’s member states, which, on the contrary, are seeking to conclude them. It is clarified that the European Union planned to conclude deals before the end of this year, but Paris appealed to the European Commission with a request to do so later.
In this regard, the publication admits that a number of European states are likely to try to put pressure on the EC on this issue during the meeting of trade ministers to be held today. The European Commission, in turn, declined to comment on media reports.
According to European diplomats, French President Emmanuel Macron is avoiding an increase in imports of chicken from Chile and lamb from New Zealand, which should happen after the conclusion of the agreements. According to them, the French leader allegedly believes that candidates from the opposition forces in the republic can take advantage of the situation to mobilize disgruntled farmers and anti-globalists.
At the same time, French officials told the FT that Paris is not ready to complete the agreements due to the need to finalize the wording of environmental issues and issues of quotas on agricultural exports.
The publication clarifies that a future agreement with Chile should make it easier for Europe to supply lithium and thus stimulate the production of electric vehicles and reduce dependence on China. As one of the EU officials explained, there is a “small window of opportunity” for this deal, negotiations on which began back in 2017.
“It’s a really good deal, but the French are against it just because of the chicken,” he said.
Earlier, on October 1, it became known that the European Union postponed trade negotiations on a free trade agreement with Australia for a month amid a scandal over the refusal to purchase French submarines from France. It was noted that the European Commission did not indicate the direct reason for the postponement of the negotiations, stating that they could not take place due to “a number of unresolved issues.” However, according to sources, this happened directly due to the submarines.
On September 15th, a trilateral security partnership – AUKUS – emerged through the signing of an agreement between representatives of Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. For the sake of new nuclear submarines from Washington and London, Canberra terminated an agreement with Paris for the supply of 12 attack submarines worth $ 66 billion and provoked a diplomatic scandal. At the same time, experts pointed out that the new alliance could be directed against China.
Australia’s decision was criticized in France. The country’s secretary of state, Clement Bone, said the entire European Union is unlikely to be able to continue to negotiate free trade with Australia after this erosion of trust in the relationship.
On September 22, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison spoke about how beneficial the AUKUS partnership is for European countries. He recalled the opportunities for the European Union in the Indo-Pacific region and listed how much cooperation with Europe brings for Australians.