Tuesday

19th Mar 2024

Belgian veto leaves EU-Canada deal in limbo

  • Wallonia's Magnette: "In current circumstances, we cannot give a yes today" (Photo: Reuters)

[Updated at 19.20 on 24 October] The Belgian government said on Monday (24 October) that it would not be able to sign an EU-Canada trade deal because of Wallonia's opposition.

"We are not in a position to sign Ceta," prime minister Charles Michel said after a meeting with regional leaders early afternoon.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

"The federal government, the German community and Flanders said yes. Wallonia, the Brussels city government and the French community said no," he said.

He added that he faced a Walloon "empty chair on Sunday and silence [Monday] morning" when trying to find a common position.

Michel needed the consent of all Belgian entities to put his country's signature on the deal ahead of an EU-Canada summit that was scheduled for Thursday.

After a late afternoon phone call, European Council president Donald Tusk and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau agreed that a summit is "still possible".

"We encourage all parties to find a solution. There's yet time," Tusk said on Twitter.

"It is obvious that, in current circumstances, we cannot give a yes today," Wallonia's minister-president Paul Magnette said after the government meeting.

Since Wallonia's parliament passed a resolution opposing Ceta on 14 October, EU and Walloon officials have been working on ways to address Walloon concerns on several issues, in particular agriculture, environmental standards, and regarding an investor settlement mechanism.

Ultimatum or not?

Wallonia rejected several proposals put forward by the Canadian government and the European Commission for an interpretative declaration that would be attached to the agreement.

On Monday morning, the parliament's speaker Andre Antoine said Wallonia was faced with a "marmalade of texts" and needed time to assess their legal value.

"Every time one tries to impose ultimatums, it makes calm discussions impossible, it makes the democratic debate impossible," Magnette said, referring to EU demands that a solution was quickly found.

Tusk had told Michel on Sunday that a decision had to be taken before Monday evening, in order to take a decision about the EU-Canada summit. Last week, EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem had said that an agreement had to be found before Friday (21 October).



EU institutions however refused to talk about ultimatums.

"The word was not ours, it came from Magnette," a council source told this website.

"The commission is not used to working with ultimata or deadlines," the commission’s spokesman Margaritis Schinas told journalists on Monday. "It is not the way [commission chief] Jean-Claude Juncker proceeds."

He said that patience was needed so that an agreement could be found and that the commission was "ready to continue to assist by all contributions.

There is no deadline to sign the agreement, for which negotiations ended in August 2014. In February 2016, the EU and Canada agreed to replace the so-called investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), an ad-hoc arbitration system, by a permanent investor court system (ICS) - the system on which Wallonia now wants clarifications.

EU officials say that re-opening negotiations is out of the question and that only guarantees and clarifications can be added.

"We strongly believe that the EU-Canada deal on the table is a good and fair one," the Slovak presidency of the EU said on Monday, adding that is was "important to use this remaining window of opportunity [before a possible EU-Canada summit] and finalise the internal process in Belgium".

Flemish pressure

From an economic point of view, "it is very unlikely that Ceta would not be signed at all," Erik van der Marel, from the Brussels-based European Centre for International Political Economy, told EUobserver.

He added that if the EU could not sign with Canada, it would be more difficult to conclude other agreements.


The Belgian government is also under pressure, because Wallonia's rejection of Ceta has reopened tensions with the Flemish.

As Van der Marel pointed out, Belgian trade with Canada is mainly from Flanders. The Dutch-speaking region had an interest in pushing the federal government to get French-speaking Wallonia to back Ceta.

The Flemish minister-president Geert Bourgeois said on Monday that a failure of the deal would be a "disaster for Flanders, Wallonia, Belgium, Europe and Canada."

Ceta failure deepens EU trade crisis

Canada said on Friday that the free-trade agreement with the EU had failed and that the bloc was "not capable" of concluding agreements.

Canada woos sceptical EU left on trade deal

Future of CETA largely hangs on the support of Europe’s social democrats. Canada’s trade minister has been touring hotspots of scepticism to convince them that the deal is progressive.

Belgium green lights unchanged Ceta

Wallonia and Brussels have voted to give the federal government the power to sign the EU-Canada trade deal, whose content is not altered by the new documents attached.

Latest News

  1. Borrell: 'Israel provoking famine', urges more aid access
  2. Europol: Israel-Gaza galvanising Jihadist recruitment in Europe
  3. EU to agree Israeli-settler blacklist, Borrell says
  4. EU ministers keen to use Russian profits for Ukraine ammo
  5. Call to change EIB defence spending rules hits scepticism
  6. Potential legal avenues to prosecute Navalny's killers
  7. EU summit, Gaza, Ukraine, reforms in focus this WEEK
  8. The present and future dystopia of political micro-targeting ads

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsThis autumn Europalia arts festival is all about GEORGIA!
  2. UNOPSFostering health system resilience in fragile and conflict-affected countries
  3. European Citizen's InitiativeThe European Commission launches the ‘ImagineEU’ competition for secondary school students in the EU.
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersThe Nordic Region is stepping up its efforts to reduce food waste
  5. UNOPSUNOPS begins works under EU-funded project to repair schools in Ukraine
  6. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsGeorgia effectively prevents sanctions evasion against Russia – confirm EU, UK, USA

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us