Former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer-who represents the Greens-describes the European free‑trade agreements with the Mercosur countries and with India as having great geopolitical importance. “These partnerships are Europe’s route into the future” he told the “Tagesspiegel” on Thursday.
At the moment the economic scale of those deals is modest compared with trade volumes with the United States and China, but Fischer said that the benefits will grow over the long term.
Regarding the farmers’ protests against Mercosur, Fischer dismissed them as “nonsense”. He argued that a decline in industrial output could deprive farmers of the state subsidies on which they depend, so it is in their interest too to secure Europe’s economic future through such agreements. “I respect the achievements of farmers and agrarians” he added, “but the future lies in industry, services and the digital sector, not in agriculture”.
Fischer labeled the decision by some Green members of the European Parliament to push for a review of the Mercosur treaty before the EU Court of Justice a “serious mistake” that he could not understand.