European Commission pushes for all-English trade deals despite French opposition

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.

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.