Brussels, 24/09/2014 (Agence Europe) - In Ottawa on Friday 26 September, the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, and the President of the Commission, José Manuel Barroso, will join the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, in celebrating the conclusion of the strategic partnership agreement (SPA) and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada. The Ottawa summit “marks the dawn of a new era in bilateral relations”, Van Rompuy commented, before he left for Canada.
The SPA, which was initialled at the start of this month, is the political arm of the EU/Canada strategic partnership, and aims to reinforce sectorial cooperation and cooperation in foreign policy matters, by laying greater emphasis on common EU security and defence policy (CSDP) issues, such as crisis management and security. The SPA will also step up cooperation on education, migration, consular protection, relations between populations, youth and cultural diversity. It will also take bilateral relations in energy, transport and the Arctic to a new level. The SPA now remains to be formally approved, signed and ratified.
The Ottawa summit will also celebrate the formal conclusion of the CETA. The work to put the finishing touches to the text of the agreement was completed this summer, with the resolution of the outstanding technical issues, such as the management of import quotas for sensitive agricultural products (beef meat on the European side, cheese on the Canadian side). The CETA will remove more than 99% of customs duty between the EU and Canada and create considerable opportunities in terms of market access for services (financial services, telecoms, transport and energy in particular) and investment. As regards public procurement contracts, Canada has undertaken to open these up at federal and federated entity (the provinces) level. In the intellectual property rights chapter, the agreement will bring the level of protection applied in Canada closer to that in force in the EU, which will, as far as Europe is concerned, benefit the pharmaceutical sector and exporters of agricultural products of a specific geographical origin (geographical indications). The CETA also features a chapter on sustainable development and an investor/state dispute settlement mechanism (ISDS), the latter having caused a row in the wake of the TTIP negotiations with the United States. Once it enters into force, the CETA will boost bilateral trade by 23%, or nearly €26 billion. For the EU, this will translate into a GDP gain of €12 billion a year.
On Friday, European and Canadian leaders will assess progress in cooperation on energy matters and on the Arctic region. As regards foreign policy, they will discuss the Ukrainian crisis and tension with Russia, the Middle East, Syria and Iraq and the “Islamic State” threat. They will also discuss the fight against terrorism and reinforced cooperation in the framework of CSDP, particularly in Africa. Lastly, the parties will look at global challenges, such as climate change and work to prepare for the adoption of an ambitious and legally binding agreement on the climate at the conference of the parties to the UNFCCC, which will be held in Paris in December 2015 (CoP21). (EH)