Fabio De Masi, the national chairman of the BSW and a Member of the European Parliament, dismissed criticism of the EU Parliament’s decision on the Mercosur free‑trade agreement. Together with four other BSW MEPs, he and the Greens, Left, and AfD all voted that the deal should be examined by the European Court of Justice.
De Masi said the “scandalisation” of the vote by parts of the political establishment and media is grotesque. “It is perfectly proper that a multilateral treaty, negotiated for more than twenty years, be reviewed by an EU court” he told the international press. “The world is not going to collapse over this”.
He added that the criticism is outdated. “Those sleepwalkers in politics and media who for decades linked the EU’s fate to the United States now claim that Mercosur has made the EU less dependent on the US” he said. “If that is what makes us independent, why don’t we, like Canada, maintain a strategic dialogue with China or repair Nord Stream? Even the IMF now admits that strategic industrial policy is more useful than simple free trade”.
Finally, De Masi pointed out that the discomfort over a joint vote by the Greens, Left, and AfD highlights the uselessness of the ideological walls these parties erect. “When one always votes in the opposite direction of the AfD, the AfD can dictate how the vote goes. That is absurd”. He insisted that the BSW always decides on substantive matters.