On Tuesday 25 October, strong opinions were expressed at a press conference about the blocking of the EU’s signing of the EU-Canada free-trade agreement, CETA. The heads of the European Parliament’s political groups were speaking on the fringes of the plenary, with the head of the EPP, Germany’s Manfred Weber, and ALDE, Belgium’s Guy Verhofstadt, criticising the mixed nature of the agreement.
CETA is not dead, said Weber, adding that everything would be done to enable Belgium to sign it. He said it was one of the best agreements ever negotiated and the European Parliament would vote for it by an overwhelming majority. Weber stated that pressure from the street had had a positive impact for improving the agreement, and he accused CETA’s opponents of preventing young people from finding work. Commenting on the decision-making process, Weber said there was a need for very clear competences, and that the mixed agreement emerged from a desire by the Social Democrats and Greens (Germany's Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel and Austria's Chancellor Christian Kern) who had input too much politics. Weber added that the member states had made a strategic error when they had called for it to be a mixed agreement in opposition to the Council legal department’s view, which said that CETA should be solely European. He admitted, however, that Wallonia’s concerns had to be taken seriously, particularly in terms of the remuneration of judges.
"I think CETA is not dead", Guy Verhofstadt said. "Now the most important thing is the approval of CETA (ratification in January of this year). Impossible to be ready for 27/10", he added, saying: "Trade Council on 9/11 could be the moment to adopt it. If there is still some problem for some countries, then change the mixed agreement into a full EU agreement, which simplifies things a lot. The main problem is that having a mixed agreement is a completely unrealistic procedure when you know there are 20 agreements in the pipeline. Unanimity and mixed agreements are a real institutional problem in Europe. Not only regarding trade, but also on Russia. (…) It is a little bit what happens with Europe. In the future Russia and China will set the standards". Verhofstad said that removing the arbitration tribunals in order to make CETA a purely EU agreement would be "a very good decision and a step forwards in European integration".
The head of the S&D Group, Italy’s Gianni Pittella, said that postponing the signature of CETA for a few weeks was not the end of the world and there was still enough margin to make progress, taking account of the Walloon parliament’s concerns, which was not doing any ideological posturing. He added that the S&D did not want any more agreements negotiated without transparency, calling for a review of the decision-making process.
Co-leader of the Greens/EFA Group at the European Parliament, Belgium’s Philippe Lamberts, stressed the importance of ringfencing countries’ ability to regulate. He said nobody can explain why there is a need for the arbitration tribunals and he would have wanted the European Parliament to deal with the question of whether arbitration tribunals comply with EU law. Lamberts added that the responsible thing would have been to ask the judicial power but a majority of MEPs do not want to do that, which makes the population suspicious. Calling for respect of the separation of powers at federal and federated level in Belgium, Lamberts regretted the decision by the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, not to cancel the summit, saying it fuelled the anti-European feeling that is rising in Europe.
The head of the ECR Group, the United Kingdom’s Syed Kamall, said: "There is a need to show that the EU is open for business and the trade agenda is not dominated by protectionism". (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry with Mathieu Bion)