File photo of French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Donald Trump (Source: AFP)

Paris (People’s Daily) – French President Emmanuel Macron said he was not in favor of a “broad trade agreement” between the European Union (EU) and the United States.

Macron made his opinion known in Madrid after his meeting with the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Thursday.

A day earlier, his US counterpart Donald Trump and the EU Commission President Jean-Claude Junker agreed on a series of trade decisions covering agriculture, industry and energy, however, the details remain to be confirmed.

The discussions are helpful to put off unnecessary tensions, but “a good commercial negotiation can only be done on a balanced and reciprocal basis and in no case under threat,” Macron said, adding that “a number of questions and concerns needed to be clarified.”

“I am not in favor of a broad trade agreement with the USA, like the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), because the actual context does not allow it,” Macron warned, reaffirming his opposition to include agriculture into the negotiators by considering that “no European standard should be abolished or lowered in environmental, health or food.”

France’s economy is recovering, but weak exports hinder the country’s growth while the deficit totaled 62 billion euros at the end of 2017, reaching a new high record.

As the largest European country and second largest after the United States in agriculture, France is the least willing EU member state to see America’s agricultural products flooding into France and other European markets.

Agriculture is one of the few sectors where France keeps a surplus in its foreign trade categories even during the financial crisis.

Macron proposed conditions for negotiating an agreement with the United States, which is to exempt France and Europe from taxes of steel and aluminum he considers to be illegal. “This is for me a prerequisite for any concrete progress,” said the French President.

Without France’s, or any other member countries’ consent, the agreement will never be concluded. In May 2017, the EU’s Court of Justice ruled that the Commission could not conclude a free trade agreement without the agreement of the 38 national and regional parliaments.

Take EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement for instance, EU reached the deal with Canada in autumn of 2017 but many EU members including France have not ratified it.

“No thorough discussion can take place while a prior and permanent exemption from tariffs is still absent,” he said. Macron reiterated his attitude towards the agreement discussion with the United States, especially after Donald Trump announced tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum.

Macron suggested France and Europe can work together on different subjects as long as Washington wants to respect the multilateral rules and treat Europeans as their allies. The French president specifically calls upon the notion of “reciprocity”.

“The bare minimum is to have reciprocity,” he said. He also defended that with the United States, it’s necessary to open its markets at both the federal and provincial levels or else many Federated States will not feel bound by the agreement.

Back in 2016 when the TTIP negotiation was in full swing, the former French Foreign Trade Secretary Matthias Fekl complained that the US public procurement is less than 50 percent compared to the more than 90 percent in the European Union.