Belgium will sign free trade agreement
New deal has option for countries to veto provisions
OTTAWA— Canada’s trade deal with Europe has taken a critical step to becoming a reality but a wary International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland is warning that hurdles remain.
Belgium on Thursday agreed to sign on to the Canada-European Union trade deal after resolving internal differences that had delayed the planned signing ceremony scheduled for Thursday.
After days of tension and last-minute negotiations, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel confirmed that the impasse over the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) had been broken.
“Belgian agreement on #CETA. All parliaments are now able to approve by tomorrow at midnight. Important step for EU and Canada,” he said on Twitter.
Freeland hailed the announcement as a positive step in a week marked by dramatic ups and downs that had left the agreement — seven years in the making — in limbo.
“It’s important for people to appreciate that while today, this morning, we absolutely had a positive development, there are still many steps to be taken,” Freeland told reporters on Parliament Hill.
“I want to be sure that Canadians appreciate that even after signing, the process will not yet be complete. As with all trade agreements, the next step will be ratification and with CETA, that will mean a vote in the European Parliament if we get past signing,” she said.
Under the original plan, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Freeland were to lead a Canadian delegation to Brussels Thursday for a grand ceremony to sign the completed trade pact. But with deal up in the air, those travel plans were postponed late Wednesday.
Twenty-seven of the 28 nations had given the trade pact their required endorsement.
But Belgium had been the holdout because of internal objections, largely raised by Wallonia, a Frenchspeaking region of the country which has veto power.
Among the objections were fears that investor protection provisions in the text put too much power in the hands of corporations to impede regulation in areas such as environment and labour.
The changes that brought Wallonia on-board appear to give countries the chance to veto such provisions at later stages of the ratification process.
Freeland downplayed the impact of the change, saying every trade agreement has “exit provisions.”
“Trade agreements must be structured that way to permit national sovereignty, and that is also the case with CETA,” she said.
Paul Magnette, president of Wallonia, said his region’s objections had produced results.
“I am sorry for all the other Europeans we made wait and for our Cana- dian partners. But if we took a bit of time, what we achieved here is important, not only for Wallonia but for all Europeans,” Magnette said.
Thursday’s development paves the way for the deal to be signed in the coming days. CETA will eliminate the tariffs on most goods almost immediately once it takes effect, while others will occur over a seven-year span.
While the trade deal will help boost exports, the real benefit is that it will put Canada at the heart of a free hub that extends to the United States, Mexico and soon 28 European nations, said Jason Langrish, executive director of the Canada Europe Roundtable for Business.
That will attract investment and global companies looking to take advantage of Canada’s access to those markets, he said in an interview.
“The more free trade agreements you have, the more you attract that kind of investment,” he said from Brussels, where he was watching developments.
While Canada will now have access to the European market, the late-day drama over the deal highlights the difficulty that the EU will have negotiating further trade agreement with other countries, such as the United States, Langrish said.
“It’s going to be a huge advantage. We get this preferential treatment in the European market,” he said.