The President of the European Commission (KE), Ursula von der Leyen, has scheduled the finalization of the agreement with Mercosur for 20 December. However, at the last stretch complications have arisen, and France and Italy are calling for the procedure to be suspended. The Polish government, led by Donald Tusk, remains entirely passive. The Prime Minister is not engaging in efforts to build a blocking minority. “Tusk’s cabinet is following guidelines from Germany, and those are clear: the agreement with Mercosur is to be signed,” Krzysztof Ciecióra of Law and Justice (PiS) told Gazeta Polska Codziennie.
On Saturday in Brazil, the President of the European Commission is expected to sign the agreement with the Mercosur countries. Unexpectedly, however, the situation has become complicated. France yesterday called on the European Union (UE) to postpone the deadlines set for signing the free trade agreement with Mercosur and rejected the deal in its current form.
A statement was issued by Minister Sébastien Lecornu, in which he argued that the conditions enabling EU member states to hold a vote on the agreement had not been met. “France is calling for the deadlines to be postponed in order to continue work on obtaining justified safeguard measures for our European agriculture,” French representatives wrote.
This, in turn, creates a real chance to form a blocking minority, especially since Italy has soon joined France. “Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and French President Emmanuel Macron have agreed that there is a need to postpone the final vote in the European Parliament (EP) on the trade agreement with Mercosur,” Reuters reported on Monday, citing two sources familiar with the talks. Poland, however, is a major absentee from the discussion. Theoretically, Tusk’s government declared its opposition long ago, but it has taken no diplomatic action.
Yesterday Donald Tusk was in the Recovered Territories, where he was celebrating their incorporation into Poland. There is also no sign of any activity by Radosław Sikorski, the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MSZ). The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Stefan Krajewski, also showed no activity yesterday and in recent days has been prominent at gala events in Poland and at Christmas wafer meetings in his electoral district. Against this backdrop, Krzysztof Hetman of the Polish People’s Party (PSL) presents himself as fighting for agricultural interests by submitting amendments in the European Parliament, which were then rejected by his own political group. “Yes, he submits amendments that are then rejected en masse. But the one that was adopted is being sold as a breakthrough. Meanwhile, these are mostly editorial amendments,” politicians from Law and Justice tell us.
Opposition politicians have no doubt that the agreement with Mercosur will ultimately be signed. “In this matter, I am pessimistic. There will still be talks about safeguards for farmers, but that will only be cosmetic, which may someday benefit those farmers who do not go bankrupt and are able to demonstrate that they suffered losses as a result of the agreement,” Krzysztof Ciecióra, a former deputy minister of agriculture, told us.