Deutsch-französischer Streit um südamerikanisches Handelsabkommen droht zum Bruch der EU – Politico

SS:

Von De Leyen flew to Uruguay to seal major trade deal with Mercosur countries that’s been decades in work with France’s dismay, her first major act in her second term as EU chief executive is inflaming a severe Franco-German rift and threatening to shake the foundations on which the European Union is built.

Germans support the deal so they can expand their export markets for their manufacturing, meanwhile French are against it because they fear the accord will undermine their farmers with a tide of cheap poultry and beef from Latin America and will whip up popular rage against the establishment and the EU.

Why this matters for EU:

> The Paris-Berlin rift is so sensitive to the whole EU because negotiating trade deals is one of the most critical competences entrusted to the European Commission on behalf of all 27 EU countries. France’s repeated vetoes to the Mercosur deal are infuriating German leaders to such an extent that they are questioning the point of Brussels handling trade, and even suggest it might make more sense for Berlin to take back control of its own trade policy.

> Such a radical clawback of powers — trade is one of the so-called core competences uniting the bloc under Brussels — would raise major questions of the EU’s raison d’être.

> Whatever happens in Uruguay — the risks are growing that one of the EU’s two largest economies — founding members of the bloc that over decades worked together to build a common market of 450 million people — will break ranks and go it alone: Germany to press ahead with the deal, and France to rebel against it.

To block the deal, France requires the support of countries representing 35 percent of the EU population. Only Poland recently joined the anti-deal camp, with others not showing signs to switch their position to anti-deal camp, the closest is Italy’s ambivalent position

France is especially critical of Von Der Leyen’s trip because it was done right after French goverment was toppled:

> “Ursula von der Leyen could not have chosen a worse moment than this. It’s a big mistake to do this now. It really gives the impression of taking advantage of the crisis in France to try and get ahead on her own,” said Christophe Grudler, another French member of the European Parliament from Macron’s liberal camp.

The pro deal camp argues deepening ties with the Mercosur countries is above all a question of geopolitical credibility for the EU

> “The president of the Commission has the interests of the whole EU in mind. And it is a truly geopolitical, geostrategic issue,” said a government official from a big EU country.

> “If we always say that Europe has to be strong in the world and keep up with China and the U.S., then we can’t say that we won’t do that with an agreement of this scope.”

The agreement can also be seen as payback time for Germany, after the European Commission went ahead with an investigation into Chinese electric vehicles that was supported by France to Germany’s dismay. Germany found itself on the losing side of a vote to impose import duties on Made-in-China EVs, while France was able to celebrate the win.

Sealing the deal over France’s head is sparking fears that this will further fuel already-strong anti-EU sentiment in the country, pushing far-right leader Marine le Pen closer to power.

> “I can imagine the nuclear explosion in French opinion against Europe if the Commission ever releases its split Mercosur [deal] in the midst of a political stampede on the national scene,” said François Chimits, an economist at the French research center CEPII.

> Chimits warned of “political instability that would result from a big agreement in a country that is both very sensitive to trade openings and has a real extreme right-wing at the door of power.”