From Mediapart's special correspondent in Brussels
Is French president Francis Hollande aware that European parliamentary elections are being held in France and the rest of Europe in late May? Or that one of the most explosive issues at those elections is set to be the ongoing negotiations between the European Union and the United States to create the largest free-trade zone in the world?
For some observers these are legitimate questions following the French president’s unexpected comments last week during his state visit to the United States, when he called for the EU-US talks to be speeded up. Standing next to President Barack Obama at a press conference in Washington, President Hollande said: “Going faster is not a problem, it's a solution. We've got everything to gain by going faster. If not we know that fear, threats and tension will build up.” And the French head of state, who has been notably more cautious on the subject in the past, asserted: “If we show good faith, if we are respectful of everyone's positions, if we are interested in ... growth, we can move quickly.” (See the video below from the 52' 20” point.)
The talks in question are over what is known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), billed as the biggest trade deal in the world and one that would reduce import and export tariffs between the United States and members of the European Union. According to forecasts by the European Commission - which are, however, hard to verify - the deal would boost growth in the EU by 0.5%. In June 2013 the Commission was formally given the authority by EU member states to negotiate with the US in talks that are officially due to be wrapped up by the end of October 2014, but which most observers think will last well into 2015 – and possibly much longer. As an example of how long such talks can drag on, it took four years to conclude negotiations between the EU and Canada for an agreement that is less ambitious than the one being planned between the EU and the US, which goes beyond simply reducing customs duties.
The prospect of a EU-US free trade zone has already attracted opposition in many parts of Europe, and the French president’s call for the talks to be accelerated will not endear him to opponents in his own camp or among political allies. “It's not François Hollande who sets the speed of the European negotiations,” says Euro MP Yannick Jadot, a member of the French green party Europe Écologie – Les Verts (EELV) who are in government with François Hollande's ruling Socialist Party, and who himself is strongly opposed to the trade deal. “He says he wants to go faster but that's not at all the reality of the talks, which have rather stalled lately.”
Jadot says it looks certain that the American Congress will not give the US government fast-track authority to negotiate in the talks, at least not before the mid-term congressional elections are held at the end of this year. Obama has been unable to persuade his own Democrat majority to grant him this mandate, which gives presidents the right to negotiate a trade treaty which cannot then be amended by Congress – though it can still be rejected in its entirety.
Up to now, France has been one of the least enthusiastic EU countries about the deal. Concern in France about the impact the trade agreement would have on its culture industry led to the entire audiovisual sector being excluded from the terms of negotiations – the so-called “French exception” - to the dismay of the EU trade commissioner Karel de Gucht. In an interview with Mediapart in April 2013 French overseas trade minister Nicole Bricq even suggested that there should be “no hurry” over the negotiations, in order to protect French interests.
Therefore François Hollande's comments in Washington nearly a year later have surprised many. Even the European Parliamentary group of the right-wing opposition party the UMP were taken aback by the new line coming out of the French presidency. “Was it the warmth of the official banquet [editor's note, in Washington] that prompted this strategy of haste? It seems to us at the very least to be premature and not very prudent,” says UMP Euro MP Constance Le Grip.
Food safety fears in Germany
By pushing for the talks to be accelerated the French president is also going against the wishes of a range of non-governmental organizations who have attacked the lack of openness of the negotiations. Many such groups argue that the talks should be allowed to take their time, to ensure a calm debate takes place over what are major issues for the future. “The negotiations continue in secret, despite the small improvement brought about by the setting up of a group of experts on the issue,” says Natacha Cingotti, from the pressure group Friends of the Earth. “The stakes of these agreements are so high that it is absolutely essential to open up the process and ensure that complete transparency exists around the negotiations. European and American citizens should be able to take part.”
Socialist Euro MP Henri Weber, who fought last year to “save” the French cultural industry from being a part of the negotiations, says that how long the talks take should not be the main focus. “The key factor is knowing whether we are negotiating a good or a bad agreement,” he says. “What must govern everything is respect for the conditions fixed by the European Parliament in the resolution it voted last May to define the [Commission's] authority to negotiate.”
If and when the EU-US negotiations come to a conclusion, it will ultimately be down to Euro MPs to vote on the agreement. An outright rejection of the deal is not out of the question, as happened with the anti-counterfeiting treaty ACTA in July 2012. And whatever François Hollande may think, the issue is set to be one of the themes of the European elections held in May. In France parties to the left of the ruling Socialist Party, such as the EELV, the Front de gauche and the new movement Nouvelle Donne, are opposed to the proposed trade deal.
“It's really just wishful thinking,” says Yannick Jadot about the president's stance. “Hollande wants to show that he really is friends with the United States. On the one hand he tells us that eavesdropping by the National Security Agency is no longer an issue. On the other he says we must speed up the trade talks. But this is just grandstanding to hide a form of political impotence.”
Hollande's eagerness to speed up the process appears all the more clumsy coming as it does at a time when even the most fervent supporters of the agreement with the US are growing more cautious on the subject. For example, trade commissioner Karel de Gucht has promised a consultation with the European public, beginning this March, on one of the most contentious areas: the method of “settling disputes between States and investors”. Some see this concession as an attempt to defuse tensions before the European elections.
Even in Germany, where chancellor Angela Merkel is a fervent supporter of an agreement, there is now a growing debate over the trade talks against a background of tensions with the US following the NSA espionage scandal. Merkel's coalition partners the SDP, for example, are deliberating over the issue. Also, the person in charge of the EU negotiating team, Spain's Ignacio Garcia Bercero, last week travelled to Berlin to respond to concerns among a section of German public opinion who fear the potential impact of any deal on food safety – for example, the importing of chicken meat that has been treated with bleach or beef containing hormones.
Meanwhile President Obama seems happy with his French counterpart's comments on the trade talks. During the same press conference last week at which President Hollande urged the negotiations to be speeded up, the US head of state commented: “I want to thank François for his cooperation.”
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English version by Michael Streeter