by Paolo Quattrocchi
Director of Centro Studi Italia-Canada

The recent meeting between President Meloni and Prime Minister Carney on the sidelines of the G7 meeting in Kananakis and the subsequent EU-Canada summit on 23 June basically did nothing more than confirm, with renewed and perhaps, we hope, more convinced emphasis, what the EU and Canada had already agreed in 2017 with the signing of the Strategic Partnership Agreement and the subsequent Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

At this point, the issue is actually not in the statements of principle, which had already been crystallised in those agreements, which have been active for almost ten years, but in the actual intention of the parties to concretely implement those declarations of principles. In fact, everything envisaged in the Strategic Partnership Agreement finds its origin in the sharing of principles and values common to the EU and Canada since before 2017 and that in that year they finally found their formal form.

Since 2017, despite CETA's obvious and undisputed successes (an increase in trade of more than 708% has been observed), important nations such as France and Italy have still not ratified, thus preventing CETA from becoming, as would be logical, the instrument par excellence on which to regulate economic relations between the two entities. Think for example of rare earths and AI, which are not part of CETA and will not be able to be part of it at least until all European states have ratified it. It is singular that France and Italy, among others, are still among the countries that have not ratified CETA: all in order to privilege the protection of local particularisms due to which the strategic scope of those agreements has been lost sight of.

On our side, no one is exempt from responsibility, since the NO CETA movement has always had a singular hinc et inde adherence that is almost impossible to see in the internal affairs of our country. No one can predict if and when these particularities will be overcome, but the President of the European Commission, at the outcome of the S mit, seems to have understood this difficulty and, in addition to having strongly reaffirmed the values of the Canada-EU friendship and of the close economic and trade ties based on CETA 'our shared success srory', she has impressed a notable acceleration on the implementation of EU-Canada relations. While ratification of CETA remains the goal to be achieved, evidently aware of the uncertainty and lengthy timeframe it might entail, he announced a number of important initiatives:

• The EU Canada Industrial policy dialogue, a forum that will allow business leaders, national and Europea ministerial authorities to meet to identify ways to strengthen the supply chain in critical sectors such as clean energy;
• Horizon Europe, the powerful innovation support system on which Canada and the EU are alread collaborating and in which the technical excellence of both sides will find important opportunities for collaboration;
• The specific Digital Trade Agreement, which will serve, precisely, to overcome the obstacle constituted by the impossibility of implementing CETA with those issues that were not yet relevant at the time of the original negotiation;
• The deepening of joint research activities on strategic technologies such as Quantum;
• The deepening of collaboration in the field of AI, particularly with reference to the mutual recognition of certifications for AI and Cyber security products;
• The establishment of the EU Canada Digital Partnership Council by the end of the 20th 5.

Finally, the Commission President referred to the defence industry as a further area of collaboration. The intentions remain good, the statements equally positive; the international scenario, apart from the obvious criticalities, confirms the need for close relations between the EU and Canada. Let us hope that, as with CETA, actions will outweigh words.

Perhaps it is true: it is never too late.