The EU has, in more or less advanced projects, free trade agreements with many countries including Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay in the framework of Mercosur and with Canada and also Japan. The Bloc also has plans for new agreements with several other countries. The EU puts this type of agreement that it signs with third countries under the Label of Multilateralism and considers, in this respect that the bilateral agreements sought by the American Administration are contrary to the spirit of Multilateralism. This is one of many factors that exacerbate the already tense relationship between the two major transatlantic players in trade, diplomacy and the like (see below). The fact remains that the negotiations for this type of trade with the EU are complex and laborious. The agreement must indeed receive the favorable opinion of each of the 27 countries of the Bloc, then be submitted for ratification to about forty local parliaments before finishing before the EU parliament for validation and final signature. The procedure is therefore long and tortuous, can last for many years, and can be delayed or blocked by any one of the many activist groups in one country or another in the EU. The blockage can also come from the high authorities of a country following, for example, to quarrels of people as recently reported the international press about a dispute between the Presidents of France and Brazil. However, the noisiest European pressure groups are unquestionably the operators of the French agricultural sector who do not want to hear about any free trade agreement whatsoever that would call into question the privileges that these French activists have acquired since the creation of the single European market and the implementation of the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy).
With regard to food, the European choice to strongly protect their agricultural sector, to guarantee their food autonomy, derives from their memories of the last Great War during which many European countries suffered from hunger. However, the privileges granted today to professionals in the EU agricultural sector may look like an easy distribution of money allowing breeders, sometimes with only a few dozen dairy cows, to live relatively comfortably, or even to afford paid holidays. But Germany, the first of the net contributors to the CAP that allows this generosity, seems to be tired of supporting these subsidies and no longer hides its annoyance at such donations that primarily benefit the Latin countries of the EU. It is highly likely that after the “Brexit”, and the exit of Great Britain from the EU, another big net contributor to the CAP, the Germans would be even more reluctant in the future to support the payments caused by the CAP. For the moment, France’s aggressive lobbying is helping to keep the EU agricultural subsidy system as it is. The French consider that the protection of the EU agricultural sector benefits all Europe including Germany. To understand this statement, it is worth remembering that, according to the standards set up by the Agricultural EU (synonymous with France Agricole), outside the international regulations, African agricultural products can be banned from entering the EU market even if they comply with the Codex Alimentarius. And in this case, as shown by various documented examples, our exporters concerned become the victims of well-established European speculators who buy their agricultural raw materials at ridiculous prices before routing them according to schemes developed on the EU market and resell them with substantial margins for the benefit of all European countries including Germany.
As far as the quarrel “Multilateralism VS Bilateralism” between the EU and the US is concerned, it is worth looking closely at these concepts to better analyze the EU’s confusing reasoning. The EU Commission, the “Government of 27”, indeed negotiates and signs free trade agreement treaties. Formally, it is a “bilateral act” between two entities as the case would be, for example, between the United States and a third country. But in the latter case, the federal law applies in exactly the same way to products imported from the third country regardless of the US port of entry. In the case of the EU regulation, the law can be interpreted and applied differently according to the understanding that the sovereign country of the EU (with the port of entry of the goods) wants to give it. There are examples that show that this understanding can differ widely from one country to another in the EU and ultimately result in economic and / or commercial shortfall for the exporting country of the product. Given that most of our products from West Africa enter the EU market via France, it follows that our understanding of the EU regulation merges with that of France. However, this is not the case for other countries that bring their products (the same ones) through different EU ports. Among the countries concerned by this case, there is the USA, for example, who has complained in the past about the different treatments of their exported products according to precisely the port of access of the goods to the EU market. On the other hand, although it is not obvious at first glance, the EU regulatory system for importing / distributing our African products is anything but innocent. According to well-designed mechanisms (not discussed in this article), the system makes it easier for European officials to accept the products they want them to access the single market. At the same time, it allows them to reject all others in ways that do not lend themselves to criticism. To put it simply, the protocol allows, for example, the closing of EU market “according to the rules of the art” to any African exporter who would have any inclination to search for other outlets for his products outside the EU.
To return to the US / EU tensions, there are some who think that the current transatlantic schism is too deep and very serious to be explained only by a trade dispute. The dispute would be more global and call into question, on all levels, the very foundations of international relations as they were posed after the last Great War. At the time, the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO and other international organizations that organized country-to-country relations at the commercial, economic, diplomatic and other levels were born. The countries each had a place and right to express their point of view and, if necessary, to sanction a decision by granting it a vote. This scheme, conceived and validated at that time by the United States, was relatively simple and consecrated the omnipotence of the United States which had, given its means and capabilities, pre-eminence over each of the countries of the globe taken individually. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, and German reunification, the European countries defended the project and obtained the EU’s status equivalent to that of a sovereign state with the flag, anthem, embassies and diplomatic representations. By doing so, they apparently took the US unawares and, as a result, they disrupted all the rules and practices followed until then at the level of international regulatory bodies. By this sleight of hand, the voice of the EU has become more prominent at WTO, IMF, Codex Alimentarius and elsewhere. In a way, Europeans are now imposing on Americans the obligation to compromise on anything with the EU at the level of each international regulator. In this respect, when, a few years ago, the Americans adopted a position in the IMF which was contrary to that of the EU on the Greek debt, the Europeans, Germany in the front row, raised the threat of setting up a parallel IMF. It would seem, then, that Germany, which lost the military war an eternity ago, has come back, draped this time with the timely cover of the EU, in order to take its revenge economically and commercially. For Uncle Sam, this new German-French-European paradigm is simply above anything the Americans would be willing to tolerate.
The Americans will most likely win the fight against the EU Bloc. Also, there is no longer any doubt that the future of the CAP, which is nearing its end, is behind that organism now. Indeed, many countries that want a free trade agreement with the EU are more interested in German technology than in farm products from France. But now that the Americans have, in the wake of the trade war with China, put the turbo to weaken the German economy, France wants to believe in the opportunity of its leadership on the EU. This Franco-German quarrel is just beginning but will surely take with it what is left of the CAP system. What is also likely is that the current EU standards will remain in place for the foreseeable future and will continue to negatively impact the export of our African agri-food resources to the EU market. If Africa wants to change things, and she better do it, the Acfta (African Continental Free Trade Area) should prioritize the implementation of African standards backed by Codex Alimentarius as soon as possible.
