Wednesday

29th Mar 2023

Belgium gets Friday deadline on Canada trade

  • Antwerp, in Belgium, is one of Europe's busiest portrs (Photo: imo.org)

Belgium has until Friday to agree to the Canada-EU trade deal (Ceta), as it remained the key obstacle to the signing of the accord after trade ministers on Tuesday (18 October) failed to sign off the agreement.

Belgium's French-speaking region, Wallonia, has blocked the federal government to agree the accord, due to be signed with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau in Brussels next Thursday.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Become an expert on Europe

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

... or subscribe as a group

  • Greenpeace activists held anti-Ceta protest in Luxembourg, where ministers met (Photo: Eszter Zalan)

"All but one member state is on board on substance," Slovak economy minister Peter Ziga, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU, said after the meeting.

Wallonia's reluctance to agree to the deal has become the major sticking point in concluding the deal, putting the EU's credibility on trade issues on the line.

"It's up to the EU summit to settle the final reservations," Ziga said.

"The good news is that we are moving toward that goal [signing the agreement]. It's not a sprint, and not a marathon, something in between," added Ziga about the talks with Belgium.

Belgian isolation

"Twenty seven and a half member states accepted the agreement," an EU official quipped in the margins of the meeting.

An EU official said Belgium's foreign minister Didier Reynders told his colleagues during the talks that he needed the next few days to fix the problem.

Wallonia's concerns would most likely be addressed in a joint declaration, a text clarifying the trade deal, or in other informal protocols, according to officials. Officials also said Reynders did not go into details at the meeting how he thinks Wallonia's concerns could be accommodated, however.

The commission is working with the Belgian and Walloon authorities to find a solution, which then would be politically endorsed by EU leaders at the summit, and agreed by the EU Council in a fast-track procedure.

"Reynders sounded reasonably optimistic," said a source, adding that the 27 fellow ministers were also optimistic the deal can be signed before prime minster Trudeau gets on the airplane next week.

However annoyed EU officials and national diplomats might be with Belgium's last-minute jitters, an official said no member state had threatened Belgium during the discussions.

"I can't imagine that the final stumbling block would be Belgium," said Ziga, and praised the country as one of the EU's founding members.

Several EU countries - including Spain, Poland, and the Czech Republic - pointed out that the bloc's credibility was at risk.

"It is about the credibility of the EU to conduct trade deals," EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem also told press after the meeting. Ziga hinted that if the deal failed the question arose whether it was worth having a common trade policy.

The difficult birth of Ceta also raised concerns that a future trade deal between the EU and the UK would be equally hard to reach.

"If we can't make a deal with Canada, I don't think we can make it with the UK," the trade commissioner said.

Last-minute solutions

Bulgaria and Romania also maintain reservations on the Canada accord, as they would like to see written guarantees that their citizens would be able to travel visa-free to Canada. According to an EU diplomat, that issue should be solved in the next few days and the two countries will not block the deal.

Bulgaria and Romania said at Tuesday's council that they were content with Ceta, another EU official said.

According to the official, the two countries reached an oral agreement with Canada on the visa issue, but they would not formally lift their reservations until they get written guarantees.

German concerns have also been addressed in a unilateral declaration on Cetan after the constitutional court in Germany gave the go ahead for the deal last week.

The German reservations were based on the court's ruling.

The Karlsruhe court said that the provisional application of the Ceta can only apply within the competencies of the EU, and that Germany can unilaterally terminate the provisional application.

Officials said the goal is to tie up the deal before EU leaders gathered in Brussels for a summit on Thursday afternoon.

"God knows what happens tomorrow," said the source.

For now, a draft conclusion of the summit, seen by this website, says in brackets: "It welcomes the decision to sign and provisionally apply the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, and calls for the European Parliament promptly to give its consent."

Interview

Canada trade deal is 'wrong enemy'

The EU's trade deal with Canada is coming under pressure from critics and member states, but the EP rapporteur argues supporters of protectionism are picking the wrong enemy.

EU and Wallonia still stuck on Canada accord

While EU ambassadors gave their tacit apporoval for a new text based on wallonia's requests, the French-speaking Belgian region again rejected to sign off the Canada-EU trade deal.

Opinion

Dear EU, the science is clear: burning wood for energy is bad

The EU and the bioenergy industry claim trees cut for energy will regrow, eventually removing extra CO2 from the atmosphere. But regrowth is not certain, and takes time, decades or longer. In the meantime, burning wood makes climate change worse.

Opinion

EU's new critical raw materials act could be a recipe for conflict

Solar panels, wind-turbines, electric vehicle batteries and other green technologies require minerals including aluminium, cobalt and lithium — which are mined in some of the most conflict-riven nations on earth, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, and Kazakhstan.

Latest News

  1. EU approves 2035 phaseout of polluting cars and vans
  2. New measures to shield the EU against money laundering
  3. What does China really want? Perhaps we could try asking
  4. Dear EU, the science is clear: burning wood for energy is bad
  5. Biden's 'democracy summit' poses questions for EU identity
  6. Finnish elections and Hungary's Nato vote in focus This WEEK
  7. EU's new critical raw materials act could be a recipe for conflict
  8. Okay, alright, AI might be useful after all

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. InformaConnecting Expert Industry-Leaders, Top Suppliers, and Inquiring Buyers all in one space - visit Battery Show Europe.
  2. EFBWWEFBWW and FIEC do not agree to any exemptions to mandatory prior notifications in construction
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersNordic and Baltic ways to prevent gender-based violence
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Economic gender equality now! Nordic ways to close the pension gap
  5. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Pushing back the push-back - Nordic solutions to online gender-based violence
  6. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: The Nordics are ready to push for gender equality

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Azerbaijan Embassy9th Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council Ministerial Meeting and 1st Green Energy Advisory Council Ministerial Meeting
  2. EFBWWEU Social Dialogue review – publication of the European Commission package and joint statement of ETUFs
  3. Oxfam InternationalPan Africa Program Progress Report 2022 - Post Covid and Beyond
  4. WWFWWF Living Planet Report
  5. Europan Patent OfficeHydrogen patents for a clean energy future: A global trend analysis of innovation along hydrogen value chains

Join EUobserver

Support quality EU news

Join us