On Thursday 20 September, European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström hailed "the progress already made" on the implementation of the free trade agreement between the European Union and Canada (CETA), which entered into force provisionally just a year ago.
The Commission underlined the dynamism of trade between the two partners, with exports up by over 7% in a year.
Malmström will be in Montreal next week, where she will participate in the first meeting of the joint committee on Wednesday 26 September. This committee is responsible for the management of the bilateral agreement and will address the thorny issue of quotas for European cheeses in Canada (see EUROPE 11848).
Overview of ratifications
The sections of the agreement that also fall under the competence of the member states, including investment protection and the much contested investor-state dispute arbitration system, must be ratified by the 28 EU member states before these sections are applied.
According to a European source, 12 member states have already ratified the agreement – Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the UK.
In France, the national impact analysis, prior to the draft law ratifying the agreement, has been delayed. Ratification is not therefore on the French agenda in the coming months.
The Italian government meanwhile has threatened not to ratify the agreement if the arrangements on geographical indications are not strengthened.
The Netherlands and some Belgian parliaments are awaiting an opinion of the European Court of Justice (see EUROPE 11856) which "could have considerable consequences on the resolve of Belgium and other member states, indeed on their ability, to ratify the agreement (...) A negative opinion could thus endanger the future of CETA", the European Parliament's research department notes.
The Austrian Parliament has ratified the agreement, but the country's ecologist president, Alexander Van der Bellen, has chosen to await the opinion of the court to send the ratification instrument to the European institutions.
If a member state warns the Commission of its definitive and permanent impossibility of ratifying CETA, the agreement's provisional application should be stopped, according to a statement from the EU Council joined to the text of the EU-Canada free trade agreement. (Original version in French by Hermine Donceel)