“I will very strongly support this proposal”, assures Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market

On Thursday, Emmanuel Macron asked the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, “to set up a European Egalim” to guarantee farmers’ remuneration at the right price.

“I will very strongly support this proposal from where I am. You can count on me”assured Friday February 2 on franceinfo Thierry Breton European Commissioner for the Internal Market while Emmanuel Macron calls for an Egalim law at European level to control prices. “Of course it can exist”estimated Thierry Breton.

The agricultural crisis was on the menu of the European Council. “I am Commissioner for the Internal Market. My role is also to check that the measures we take are egalitarian, the same everywhere in Europe. This is not the case today”he pointed.

French farmers pointed to European competition, particularly on prices. The Egalim law “is, moreover, circumvented by the large power plants which will no longer set up in France, but elsewhere. We must put an end to it and I will very strongly support this proposal from where I am. You can count on me”, he explained. The objective of the Egalim law is to protect the remuneration of agricultural producers in negotiations between large retailers and agro-industrial suppliers.

Mercosur, an agreement to rethink

Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market, highlighted free trade agreements which are “for some of them from the last century“, thus targeting Mercosur. France refuses a trade agreement between the European Union and the Latin American Mercosur bloc (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia) if there is no no “reciprocity”. “The free trade agreements which are still developed and sometimes concluded are a bit like agreements, for some of them, from the last century. We have not mentioned the need for sovereignty”explained Thierry Breton.

“When we set standards, and we are right to do so to move towards greater security for our fellow citizens, there must be reciprocity. If there is never reciprocity, there is no will not agreehe insisted. “We can no longer be naive”he assured.

Valérie Hayer, MEP and president of the Renew group in the European Parliament, reaffirmed the position of the presidential majority MEPs: “Mercosur, as it stands, is no. We are waiting for a revolution on this issue. Without a revolution, France will not support the Mercosur agreement.”