The CETA Agreement comes into force on 21 September on a provisional basis. The path leading to the conclusion of the Free Trade Agreement is 10 years old, often between stages obstructed by the opposition, both in Canada and in Europe.

 

Paolo Quattrocchi*

 

September 21 will remain a memorable date in the relationship between the European Union and Canada. This is in fact the day chosen for the CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) entry into force, albeit provisionally, of the global economic agreement that will revolutionize trade relations between the European Union and Canada by implementing a series of interventions aimed at facilitating the trade relations between the two parties.

The agreement is not limited to economic and trade profiles, but it also spans broader themes: with the CETA, the EU and Canada have signed the Strategic Partnership Agreeement, an agreement that has an impact on many areas (environment, security, social policies, culture, innovation), through which it intends to effectively strengthen the strategic collaboration between the two countries. The agreement, therefore, must be seen in its entirety and, above all, not dissociated from the Strategic Partnership Agreement to which perhaps is not given the importance it deserves.

2007 – 2017: the long journey of the CETA

It was Canada, indeed, for the Quebec Province, which first had the intuition to propose an economic agreement between the EU and Canada. It was 2007 and, at the World Economic Forum, Quebec's premier Jean Charest proposed to the European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson an economic partnership between Canada and the EU. It is no coincidence that the initiative come from Quebec: the French-speaking Canadian Province has always had intense trade with Europe, and precisely because of the particular position Quebec has historically occupied within the  federal law, the 'gigliata' province looks forward to diversifying its reference markets, addressing precisely at Europe whose economic structure model perhaps fits well with Quebec's purposes within the Federation.

 

The objectives were clear to the promoters: Quebec's premier and Minister of Economic Development, Innovation and Trade Raymond Bachard stated that their desire was to launch consultations to arrive at the signing of a free trade agreement exchange between Canada and the European Union: “It has to be a new-generation agreement that will deal with the impediment to investment and stimolate trade of good and services. It could also cover sustainable development, mobility for people and good, recognition of skills, and scientific and technical cooperation”.

The Province of Ontario was the first to answer at the Quebec initiative, with Premier Dalton McGuilty that has encouraged in the summer of 2008, the start of negotiations. In October 2008, a summit was held in Quebec City, followed by Charest's 2009 meetings with Sarkozy in Paris and Barroso and Ashton in Brussels.

 

In May 2009, real negotiations began.

 

The path that led to the conclusion of the agreement has not been easy and has clashed several times with a double front: an internal front, both in Canada, in view of the federal order, where each province had to handle delicate political issues local economy and in the European Union, where individual Member States have expressed their concerns and raised disputes on several occasions; and an external front, meaning with this the real negotiation between the two parties.

The negotiators' efforts have been rewarded and, having passed the various procedural steps, the two-time approval of the Federal Parliament and the European Parliament has been reached and a date was agreed on September 21, in which to start implementing - albeit provisionally - the execution of the Agreement.

 

The oppositions to the Agreement

 

The implementation of the Agreement is therefore provisional: this means that for the finality of the Agreement, considering that this is an agreement which has been awarded the status of "mixed" (economic and political) will be followed by the ratification by all national parliaments.

 

In Italy, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee has approved and now the ratification law will have to be passed in the Senat chamber. During the respective visits to Canada, Gentiloni first and Mattarella later expressed their support for CETA and their commitment to ensure that the Parliament ratifies the Agreement.

The opinions about the accession to the agreement are not unanimous: there are voices of dissent based on a variety of reasons that I personally do not consider acceptable, but of course they deserve the utmost respect. Regardless of the positions of opposition to free trade and the global economic treaties, I believe that the remaining reasons for the 'no', supported also with authority, are instrumental and linked, whether or not to particular interests, without considering that, when there is a discussion of free trade, all the economic interests involved must be assessed on the whole.

 

Canada, in that sense, has faced very serious problems, related to the interest taken by the different provinces although it would be more correct to say that these are instances supported by different categories of workers and expressed by some Provinces. The case of Quebec, the province from which the CETA has begun, is considered as an example, looking fearfully at the launch of the Canadian market for dairy products since most of the products in this sector consumed in Canada are produced in Quebec. Despite the fears of local interests, common sense has prevailed and the Agreement has continued its path towards its entry into force. But such a strong opposition has never been registered in the area of economic treaties, despite the fact that the EU has already concluded many of them: it is enough to mention the agreement with South Korea - for which Italy shines negatively by occupying one of the last positions among European countries - or even the trade agreement on which Europe and Japan have faced for more than four years and for which they are close to the definitive agreement; in both of these cases, no campaign or dissenting voice has ever been raised.

 

It can be assumed that geographic proximity to the US and a certain global tendency to identify and confuse, with regard to the approach and management of international relations, Canada's culture with the US has made Canada a country which is not well-liked and with respect to which it can be liable to express suspicions of aggression or misconduct in managing issues related to compliance with the rules?

But if that were the case, those who express such a thought would prove not to know Canada, its history, the Canadian society and specifically the way of being and thinking of its citizens.

 

At a time in which is firmly criticized the closed position to the market expressed by Trump, most recently with start of the official practice for the renegotiation of NAFTA (the free trade agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico) the concern of citizens about the impact of international economic integration and some European protectionist positions appear to be a losing strategy. This applies even more to a manufacturing and exporting country like Italy.

Indeed, in the current economic context, a position opposed to the US could bring enormous benefits to Canada and the EU whose reciprocal exchanges, thanks to CETA, will grow and facilitate the new Treaty. More generally, we should seriously reflect on how we can oppose creating an integrated form of economic and social policy cooperation with a country of 36 million (5% of the European population!), of which the vast majority is of European origin, who represent one of the top seven economies in the world (with the best growth rate of GDP), which have for years been at the world rankings for quality of life and who have much to say to the world in management of migration flows, respect of minorities in the broadest sense of the term and compliance with the rules with particular reference to those of civilized living.

 

* Director of the Centro Studi Italia-Canada

vice-president of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Canada-West