At a meeting of EU trade ministers on Friday 10 November, France called for progressive free-trade agreements with tough clauses on sustainable development whose implementation can be monitored by a “European trade public prosecutor.”
French secretary of state for foreign trade, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, told this newsletter after the meeting on Friday that he had given the Council a very volontarist message about sustainable development.
In Canada, where he recently unveiled the French action plan for implementation of the CETA agreement (see EUROPE 11892) to the Council and Commission, Lemoyne said he had had the same desire for tough measures to ensure respect of the environment and to take account of the climate.
Work will begin with Canada in December and the European Commission services will be working on joint interpretative-type measures to avoid the ICS-type investor-state dispute settlement mechanism foreseen in CETA being abused by companies wanting to challenge environmental legislation, said Lemoyne.
He said he had called for future agreement to have explicit references to the Paris Climate Agreement and the precautionary principle. The French government is proud to carry these ideals and wants to promote progressive trade deals, he said, which is possible if there is shared desire, which he had been able to assess in Canada.
In terms of monitoring implementation of trade agreements, Lemoyne said France had made clear its attachment to greater means at the Commission for ensuring agreements are respected by the other parties.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, recently mooted the idea of a European trade public prosecutor or enforcement chief at EU level to ensure the implementation of trade agreements is fair and honest and that the EU can intervene and ensure that partners change tack if failings are found, explained Lemoyne.
In the light of the first report by the European Commission on implementation of the EU's trade deals, which shows tangible results in terms of exports, but relative underuse by European operators of the new deals (see EUROPE 11901), Lemoyne called for educational work to be done so that all areas of the economy take ownership of the agreements and to ensure full use of import quotas. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)