“It’s a real anti-democratic hold-up,” denounces Karine Jacquemart, general director of Foodwatch France

The Senate must examine the free trade agreement between the European Union and Canada but elected allies of the majority “have tabled a motion to withdraw”, for fear that it will be rejected, the organization is outraged non-governmental consumer protection organization.

“It’s a real anti-democratic hold-up,” denounces Karine Jacquemart, general director of Foodwatch France, on France Inter on Thursday March 21, while the Senate will examine the free trade agreement between the European Union and Canada (Ceta). The senators’ vote comes five years after the adoption of this text by the National Assembly in 2019, because the communist senators included it in their parliamentary time three months before the European elections.

“At the time, instead of having a calm democratic debate, the government put it through an accelerated procedure in the middle of summer, in July 2019,” deplores Karine Jacquemart. “The vote was extremely close and I am convinced that if there had been more democratic time, it would have been very clear that the question arose to refuse this agreement”she continues.

“90% of the text” provisionally applied despite the refusal of 10 States including France

Five years later, “we learn that some of the senators allied with the majority and the government have tabled a motion to withdraw“, explains the general director of Foodwatch.

“As they fear a refusal from the majority of senators, they put forward a motion saying ‘this is a hasty vote, let’s not vote, let’s postpone the vote in committee’.”

Karine Jacquemart, general director of Foodwatch France

at France Inter

“When it doesn’t suit them because they fear a ‘no’, they do a kind of refusal of an obstacle”, denounces Karine Jacquemart.

France is one of the 10 Member States of the European Union which have not ratified Ceta, but “90% of the text is already in provisional application” since 2017, explains Karine Jacquemart. She recalls that “the standards of food and livestock production in Canada and Europe are totally different”. For example, “in Canada, more than 40 pesticides are still used”, “livestock can still be fed with some animal meal”, but it can also receive “growth-promoting antibiotics”. With this agreement, Canada “wants to attack social and environmental protective standards” of the European Union, she believes.

The director of Foodwatch criticizes “a system which will give small advantages to certain actors in particular”, notably large exporters of cheese and wine, “to the detriment of all others”. “If we sign Ceta, what we commit to is a quota of 65 000 tons [de bœufs] the day Canada wants to export them”she emphasizes.