CETA Still Not At Finish Line As Belgian State Halts Process

By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch

CETA, the Canada-Europe trade agreement, is still not at the finish line yet. The European Commission has all but one member state on board for the signature of the Comprehensive Economy and Trade Agreement (CETA), Slovak Economy Minister Peter Ziga said today after a meeting of the trade ministers of the EU member states.

Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Didier Reynders could not sign the trade agreement after the Parliament of Walonia, the French-speaking region of the small country, voted against CETA.

Also under deliberation, according to EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem, were several bilateral and unilateral declarations of member states. The German government, for example, is obliged by a constitutional court ruling to make a unilateral withdrawal of the country from CETA possible, should the court rule it unconstitutional in its main proceedings.

Planned for a one-hour signature session the trade minister meeting today, the meeting took close to five hours only to end with another delay.

With only eight more days until the planned signature of CETA by Canada’s Premier Minister Justin Trudeau and the European Commission, time is running out for compromise. EU governments now have one more opportunity to get their CETA approval done, at a EU Council meeting in Brussels at the end of the week.

While CETA opponents applauded the Parliament of Walonia for its resistance to the deal, Malmstroem said there was an understandable wish of EU member states to talk about future trade policy of the Union. Negotiations should not take for years, she said, at the same time pointing to several deals that are about to be concluded with South Africa, Ecuador, and the South American Common Market, Mercosur.