Brussels, 17/05/2013 (Agence Europe) - The Canadian authorities deny the rumours of concluding negotiations on the technical level. On the European side, assurances are given that the agricultural stumbling block has not yet been removed. However, the idea of announcing an agreement on the sidelines of the G8 summit in June is well under way.
The EU-Canada negotiations for a comprehensive economic and trade agreement are making progress but a final agreement has still not been announced - six months after the first deadline set at the end of 2012. “The negotiation process is continuing to explore solutions to the questions that remain to be resolved”, said the spokesperson to the Canadian trade minister, Rudu Husny, the day after the negotiation session of 6-8 May in Brussels. “There is still work to do”, he added.
Ottawa has therefore denied rumours of work being almost completed on the technical level - rumours especially spread by the authorities of the province of Quebec. “It is not over”, but “with just a few commas to put in place, the negotiations work is completed and there are still a few questions to be decided at the political level”, Jean-François Lisée, the minister of Quebec for international relations, had earlier suggested, confident that an agreement would soon see the light of day. “[Last week] in Brussels, for the most part, the remaining disputes were whittled down by the negotiators”, Lisée had said, quoted by national media.
Earlier in the week of 6 May, the EU ambassador to Canada, Matthias Brinkmann, had told Canadian media that the agricultural stumbling block had still not been removed - the parties still stumbling on access to the agricultural market and the issue of export quotas of European cheese to Canada and of the opening of the European beef and pork market. Brinkmann had nevertheless implied that the negotiations could be concluded before the summer, so that the European leaders could seal an agreement with Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper by the G8 summit on 8 June.
In the final phase since the end of 2012, the EU-Canada negotiations have stalled. Among the most difficult issues remaining to be settled, in addition to access to the agricultural market, are automobiles, Canadian pharmaceutical patents and access to Canadian public procurement. Assuring at the end of March that the negotiations were nearing the end, the Canadian minister for trade, Ed Fast, had refused to predict a date for the end, but had promised that the two parties were working to find “creative solutions” (our translation throughout). At the beginning of April, the Canadian press had announced a compromise on the automobile chapter - one of the most thorny.
Despite a blockage on the agricultural chapter that prevents any further progress, rumours abound as to the announcement of an agreement on the sidelines of the G8 summit in Northern Ireland, which would enable Europe to progress freely towards the starting line of the marathon aiming to lead it towards an ambitious free trade agreement with the United States. In Ottawa, as in Brussels, word remains that no deadline has been fixed - priority being given to the quality of the agreement rather than to the timetable.
Once the negotiations are finished, the parties will have to proceed to a legal examination of the text then to ratify the agreement - a process which could take up to two years in Europe. In Canada, the government will have to adopt a law on the agreement concluded which will have to be debated and adopted in the federal parliament.
It remains to be added that, although separated by Brussels and Ottawa from the free trade negotiations, two files are sallying bilateral trade relations. On one side is the European embargo on seals, taken to the WTO by Canada. On the other, is the European project to discriminate against the oil sands of Canada - for the carbon emissions linked to their exploitation which are, in the Commission's view, higher than those linked to conventional oil. Canada does not rule out appealing to the WTO on this file if necessary. (EH/transl.fl)