The EU-Canada free-trade agreement (CETA), free-trade negotiations with the United States (TTIP) and updating EU trade defence instruments will be central to the informal meeting of EU trade ministers in Bratislava on Thursday 22 and Friday 23 September.
At this meeting, European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström, accompanied by Canadian Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland, hopes to dispel member states’ final doubts about CETA and so secure the signing of the agreement, probably at an EU-Canada summit in Brussels on 27 October.
“I hope that the series of meetings planned there will bring us closer to the decision on the entry into force of the EU-Canada treaty. This agreement – CETA – is the most forward-looking free trade agreement that Canada or the EU have ever negotiated”, stated Malmström on her blog on Wednesday.
“It will benefit consumers, workers and entrepreneurs, tearing down customs tariffs and opening up a valuable market for Europe. And it will demonstrate that Europe and Canada mean what we say, when we say we want a progressive trade policy that upholds our shared values”, she stressed.
“All member states need to agree to the Canada agreement before it can start creating jobs for Europeans. I know that some concerns among member states still remain, concerns that now need to be discussed in full”, she added, promising to provide “clarifications” on Friday on the delivery of public services, safeguarding labour rights and environmental protection and to deliver guarantees on the independence of the “improved” investor-state dispute settlement mechanism contained in the agreement.
In addition to the member states, while in Bratislava, Malmström will also endeavour to persuade both the Slovak parliament, when she meets some of its members, and stakeholders, in particular the trade unions and civil society, attending a conference organised by the Commission on Thursday on benefits trade agreements bring, of the advantages of CETA.
“I hope that the coming two days will bring us closer to the decision of signing the Canada trade agreement this fall. This discussion, in my view, is also about how Europe is going to approach the unavoidable fact that the world is more connected today than ever before. And, in the end, whether we want our European societies to be more open or more closed”, concluded her blog.
The previous day, as 10,000 gathered around Council and Commission buildings in Brussels to protest against free-trade agreements, and in particular CETA, TTIP and the international agreement on services, TiSA, Malmström acknowledged during a meeting with the Belgian federal parliament that CETA negotiations “could have been more transparent from the time of their launch in 2009” and gave assurances that the Commission was doing its utmost to bring maximum transparency on the TTIP talks.
Addressing Belgian MPs, Malmström again argued that CETA is an economically effective agreement and will protect public services, standards and the right of states to legislate in the public interest. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)