On Thursday 13 October, the German Federal Constitutional Court (Court of Karlsruhe) gave the German government the go-ahead to approve the signing of the EU-Canada free-trade agreement (CETA) by the EU. It is hoped that this will be signed during the EU-Canada summit in Brussels on 27 October.
The German court, however, set out a number of conditions stipulating that Germany would only be committed to implementing the agreement if it had a guarantee that it could withdraw from the agreement if the constitutional court requested to do so at a later stage.
The Court of Karlsruhe has not yet ruled on the constitutionality of the treaty, as a number of German NGOs asked it to in an appeal submitted at the end of August (see EUROPE 11612), and it will need several months to decide on a ruling on this point.
The Court of Karlsruhe has introduced two other conditions that need to be met for its approval: firstly, it is requesting that only the parts of the treaty that are within the EU’s remit provisionally enter into force, and secondly, it is calling for firm guarantees on transparency and the impartiality of the dispute settlement system between investors and states.
This decision paves the way to Germany’s approval of the texts that give the EU the authority to sign the CETA during the EU trade ministers’ meeting on 18 October.
Despite being bolstered by the certain support from Germany, the consensus required at the Council for the EU signing the CETA still appeared uncertain on Thursday. The Belgian federal authority is still not sure of having full powers for giving its approval for it.
Three of the seven entities making up the very complex Belgian federal system – the federal parliament and the parliaments of the three administrative regions (the Brussels Capital, Flemish and Walloon regions) and the three language communities (Flemish Community, Wallonia-Brussels Federation and the German-Speaking Community) – are still threatening to veto the signing of the CETA by the EU.
The Wallonia-Brussels Federation Parliament (French-speaking Community) considers that the draft of the interpretative declaration prepared by the Commission and the Canadian government does not meet its demands. On Wednesday 12 October it therefore adopted a resolution opposing the signing of the CETA. It is now up to the socialist minister-president of the French-speaking Community, Rudy Demotte, to decide whether he will follow the opinion of his assembly or not.
The majority of the Walloon regional Parliament is opposed to the CETA and is expected to adopt a similar resolution on Friday. The minister-president of the Walloon Region, socialist Paul Magnette, is due to meet French President François Hollande in Paris on Friday.
At the end of last week, the government of the Brussels Capital region indicated that it had not obtained unanimity on the text and that it was awaiting the position of its Parliament to move forward.
By contrast, the horizon appeared to be brightening up on Thursday with regard to the signing of the CETA by the other European countries that had still been expressing reservations over the past few days about the “interpretive declaration”, for which the Commission and the Canadian government put a new draft text on the table on Wednesday.
The interpretive declaration of the CETA seeks to mitigate the concerns of member states regarding some of the most sensitive issues, including the protection of public services and standards, the precautionary principle and the impartiality of the investors-state dispute setttlement mechanism.
A Community source told EUROPE on Thursday that Slovenia has had a problem on the dossier involving water resources management but is “now happy on substance, and it is now more a question of procedure”.
Bulgaria and Romania continue to negotiate with Canada on a parallel path on the question of visas for their nationals. The same source provided assurances that "the latest indications were positive". (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)