France's umbrage at the anglophone-only presentation might complicate the ratification of the EU-India trade deal, even though it supports the deal itself and considers India a strategic partner.
The European Commission transmitted the EU-India trade deal, clinched last January, to EU member states for ratification on Friday – but only in English, despite opposition from France.
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The EU executive wants to fast-track the ratification process for trade deals by skipping the translation of agreements into the bloc's 24 official languages.
“When President von der Leyen went to India in January to conclude negotiations for this landmark trade agreement, she made a commitment to try to get it over the line within this calendar year,” Commission Deputy Chief Spokesperson Olof Gill said on Friday. “That is still our ambition.”
However, as first reported by Euronews in March, Paris is rejecting the idea of providing single-language documents for fast ratification, arguing that translation is an obligation – and not only into French, one of the working languages of the EU institutions.
Access for EU and national lawmakers to EU trade deals in all languages is a concern for the French, who consider that those agreements contain technical provisions whose nuances can only be understood once translated.
However, the approval of the European Parliament is necessary for the ratification of EU trade deals, and sometimes also that of EU national parliaments.
Translation before the European Parliament's vote
The Commission said on Friday that the EU-India trade deal will be translated after the signature process by EU countries, before it is transferred to the European Parliament. Once ratified, it will then be published in the Official Journal in all the official EU languages.
“What we are proposing to do is that the agreement will be signed in the language of negotiations, i.e. English, and all EU language versions will become available as soon as possible during the process and certainly before the agreement will be voted in the European Parliament," Gill added.
It is not clear whether the Commission’s commitment will be enough to ease French opposition to this new style of ratification procedure.
Paris already led opposition to the EU-Mercosur agreement, clinched in December 2024, but for trade reasons. EU farmers feared unfair competition from Latin American products on the EU market.
Since then, ratification of the deal with the Latin American countries has been suspended after MEPs seized the Court of Justice of the European Union with a legal referral.
This time, French opposition might be driven by non-trade-related considerations, as France supports the EU-India trade deal in principle.
The deal does not target farm products and was clinched with a partner seen by Paris as the most strategic one in the Asia-Pacific region.