The French countryside has already taken to the streets and roads to protest against the possible signing of the free trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and Mercosur (block launched by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) and the French government – which had already managed to stop the signing in 2019 – has also expressed its opposition to its ratification. And in Spain, among the farmers and breeders, they don’t like the text as it is written, so they ask the Central executive who moves to “defend” its interests. This was expressly expressed this Monday from Castilla y León by the agricultural organizations Asaja and La Alianza UPA-COAG, who urged the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, to take advantage of the “golden opportunity” that ‘He has, they say, to position himself and seal an “alliance” with his French counterpart, Annie Genevard, “veto” the signing of this agreement.
“If it does not align” with the postulates of the French country, warned Lorenzo Rivera (COAG), this will mean “that what he wants is for it to be signed” and Planas would thus argue that “ That would be very good.” ” for Spain. A position which is not at all shared by professionals in the field, who predict a negative impact on their farms if “mirror clauses” are not applied to products arriving from abroad, so that they are also governed by the same requirements as those required of European production. If this equality is not required, The minister “does not keep” what he promisedin the countryside last winter, when tractors invaded the streets, highways and towns.
“It’s necessary save our family farms“, also affirmed Aurelio González (UPA), who warned that this European model – which has nothing to do with large American agricultural operations – is at “risk” due to the possibility of compete in “inequalities” conditions with products from Latin America which do not even meet the same requirements for the use of products “banned” in Europe. Case, he specifically underlined, of clenbuterol for which Brazil is serving a sanction for its use in the fattening of beef.
Beetroot, beef, pork… are just some of the raw materials mentioned. “We must defend internal products and guarantee food for Europeans“, shouted González, who warned that if everything was entrusted to third parties, “we will find out what things are worth”, in addition to the possible risk of “shortage”.
This possible agreement was therefore “dusted off” recently by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyenis one more argument in favor of the calendar of mobilizations which began on October 11 and which, after knowing the possible EU-Mercosur agreement, will intensify to “ask for solutions”, said the president of Asaja Castilla y León, Donaciano Dujo. If it is signed as is, it will be “another hard blow” for the agriculture of Castile and León, Spain and the European Union as a whole.
They are, he stressed, in favor of signing commercial agreements with third parties, “but on equal conditions”. “It is impossible for only European products to meet European Union standards,” Underlined Dujo, who criticized the fact that “any and everything mode of production can enter here”, and “without respecting” the conditions, bureaucracy and “excessive restrictions” that prevail at the community level.
This Friday, November 29 they will go out into the street again. They will do it in Arévalo (Ávila), in front of one of the main flour mills -Villafranquina- and with the intention of also heading to another grain producer from there -Octaviano Palomo- to ask for “fair prices” for their products, notably for cereals, a crop to the extent that Castilla y León was the breadbasket of Spain and “is abandoned” by the “lack” of profitability. And this will be the second mobilization of the fall, but we are already saying that “it’s not going to stop there” and that the winter could be hot, because the accounts “don’t add up”.
