Canadian
minister: EU trade talks have failed
Belgium’s
Wallonia blocks the deal over concerns about investors being able to
sue governments.
By SIMON MARKS
10/21/16, 5:05 PM CET Updated 10/21/16, 6:40 PM CET
Canada has called it
quits.
Canadian Trade
Minister Chrystia Freeland said Friday that her efforts to reach a
deal with the EU on a landmark trade deal with Canada had failed and
that she would be returning home empty handed.
“During the last
few months we have worked very hard with the European Commission and
member states. But it seems evident that the EU is now not capable of
having an international deal, even with a country which has values as
European as Canada, even with a country as kind, as patient,” she
said upon leaving Belgium’s Walloon parliament in Namur this
afternoon.
The region was the
holdout in sealing the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
with Canada, potentially torching the deal for the entire Continent.
The dramatic fiasco with the French-speaking half of Belgium raises
grave questions about the ability of the European Commission to
retain executive powers over the EU’s trade policy. And it will
likely send concerns over the Channel to the U.K. where officials
hope to achieve market access to the EU when it eventually leaves the
28-member bloc.
“Canada is
disappointed, I am personally very disappointed, I have worked very,
very hard. We have decided to go back home. I am very, very sad,
really. Tomorrow morning, I will be at home with my three children,”
Freeland added, fighting back tears.
The EU hasn’t
reached the same conclusion as Freeland, however.
The Commission’s
chief negotiator on CETA Mauro Petriccione, who was at the EU
leaders’ summit in Brussels earlier Friday, has rushed to Namur
this afternoon, sources said, indicating that the Commission hopes to
keep talks with the Walloon government going.
Freeland’s remarks
came after a turbulent 24 hours in Brussels during which EU leaders
tried their hardest to convince the regional parliament of Wallonia
to lend its support to the EU’s trade deal with Canada. Wallonia’s
Minister-President Paul Magnette said earlier that he was still
unable to support a trade deal between the EU and Canada because of
concerns over a legal framework through which investors will be able
to sue governments.
Ottawa, which had
hoped to sign off on the trade deal with the EU next week during the
EU-Canada summit, will now have to wait and see if Wallonia’s
concerns over the powers afforded to multinational companies can be
smoothed out in the coming days.
European Commission
President Jean-Claude Juncker said that he should not be blamed for a
controversial decision to submit the EU-Canada trade pact for
approval in regional parliaments and governments across Europe and
expressed some hope that the impasse over the deal could be resolved
within the next couple of days.
Asked whether it had
been a mistake to treat the Comprehensive Economic and Trade
Agreement as a “mixed agreement” — meaning that not only EU
governments and the European Parliament but also 38 regional and
national assemblies need to approve the deal — Juncker replied: “I
never reflect over mistakes that others have forced me to commit.”
Juncker came under
particular pressure from Sigmar Gabriel, a German deputy chancellor,
whose Social Democrats party had raised a host of concerns about the
democratic nature of the trade deal with Canada.
German Chancellor
Angela Merkel, however, defended the decision to open up the trade
deal to national parliaments saying that the involvement of national
parliaments had helped to bring the debate on CETA back to the facts.
“We can now only
hope that last disagreements in Belgium can be sorted out by further
negotiations,” Merkel said.
Or the Commission
could take the risk of carrying on in spite of Belgium, though
experts say that it would be difficult for the Commission to do.
“Given the
Commission’s decision to propose the CETA to the Council as a
‘mixed agreement,’ there is no legal option for its full legal
implementation without Belgium’s approval,” said Bruno Simões,
an associate lawyer at FratiniVergano, a law firm based in Brussels.
“At this stage, the issue is more political than legal.”
Simões added,
however, that an ongoing case at the European Court of Justice
deciding on whether or not a similar trade deal with Singapore should
be allowed to be a “mixed agreement” could be an interesting
precedent for what happens next with CETA.
“The Commission
could choose to go against political considerations and requalify the
CETA as an ‘EU-only’ agreement,” he said. “This is unlikely
to occur because it would cause more political complications, but it
would allow the Council to adopt the CETA even if Belgium is not on
board.”
Hans von der
Burchard contributed reporting.
Authors:
Simon Marks
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