During the visit to Paris of the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, on Monday 16 April, he and the French President, Emmanuel Macron, stressed the progressive vision of Europe and Canada in economic and commercial matters that is reflected in the EU/Canada free-trade agreement (CETA).
“We reiterated the importance of trade to our economies. We are both determined to develop trade agreements by making them more consistent with our social, environmental and sanitary commitments”, Macron told a press conference after their meeting, stressing their “joint determination to carry a progressive vision of the world” (our translation throughout).
“The CETA is a modern agreement that reflects a progressive commercial agenda that makes provision for workers' rights, environmental protection, responsible investments, food security, consumer protection and management of natural resources”, Trudeau added, adding that it sets a standard for future trade agreements.
Macron welcomed the cooperation undertaken between Paris and Ottawa “to implement CETA under conditions that correspond to the values, collective preferences and climate commitments” of Europe and Canada.
“I welcome the work between our governments to clarify all matters that needed clarification and to set in place a monitoring system to raise any doubts that may arise at any time”, he added.
In October 2017, France adopted an action plan to monitor CETA's compliance with the sanitary, social, environmental and climate requirements (see EUROPE 11892).
Trudeau also stressed the advantages to ordinary people that have already come about since CETA was provisionally implemented in September 2017. Canada's imports to France grew by 4% and Canadian investments in France rose by 23% in 2017 compared to 2016 figures, he stressed.
CETA, which was signed on 30 October 2016 and ratified by the European Parliament on 15 February 2017, and then by the Canadian Parliament on 16 May 2017, provisionally entered into force on 21 September 2017.
It will be fully implemented once all EU member states have ratified it, in line with their respective constitutional obligations, paving the way for the dispute settlement mechanism to be set in place to rule on disagreements between investors and states, the special Investment Court System (ICS), which will replace the previous arbitration system, ISDS.
So far, eight member states have notified the Council of the EU that their national parliaments have ratified the agreement: Latvia, Denmark, Malta, Croatia, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Spain and Portugal. In autumn of last year, France announced that it was planning to ratify it in a vote of the National Assembly in the second half of 2018.
The European Commission and the Canadian government have already outlined all stages in the full implementation of CETA (see EUROPE 11987). (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)