On Tuesday 21 March, European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström warned against the threat of rising populism in Europe, and of the election of a far-right government in France in the spring, for the sustainability of the EU-Canada free trade agreement (CETA). The provisional implementation of CETA is imminent, but the agreement must also be ratified by the national parliaments of the EU.
Signed on 30 October 2016, after a crisis that lasted several weeks due to the resistance of Belgian French-speaking federated entities which for a time prevented the Belgian federal government from approving the agreement, CETA was then ratified by the European Parliament on 15 February (see EUROPE 11726).
As the countries of the EU have chosen for it to be a "mixed agreement", it is now due to be ratified by all the national parliaments before definitively entering into force.
"If that fails, we'll have to see. We don't know (the impact of that) because that has never happened. If that would happen, member states would have to convene and find a way out of this situation. France is the big test", Malmström stated.
Whilst the far right was beaten in the Dutch elections last week, all eyes are now on France, where Front National leader Marine Le Pen (who won the country's previous European elections) is leading the polls for the first round.
"If a populist government would come in in France, that would be a threat to a lot of things that we treasure, not only trade agreements", Malmström stated. The French Front National "is not only anti-trade, it's anti-globalisation, it's anti-immigration, it's anti-most of the values that a majority of us uphold. So, that would be a real threat to the European Union as a whole", she continued.
Malmström was in Ottawa to discuss preparations for implementing CETA with Canada's Trade Minister François-Philippe Champagne. They were also to discuss the EU's trade agenda and the proposal put forward by the EU and Canada for a multilateral court to settle investment disputes. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)