Belgium is still not in a position to endorse the signing of CETA. Despite this announcement, following a telephone conversation between Council president Donald Tusk and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada and the EU have decided not yet to cancel a bilateral summit scheduled on Thursday (27 October 2016), …
EU FTAs & bilateral ties
EU should engage on data flows in TTIP to avoid WTO challenge, argues new legal study
Wallonia: We are the 0.45 percent
A graph put together by Erik van der Marel, a Brussels-based economist and author of the blog Bruxenomics, shows that Wallonia, with its 3.5 million people, accounts for 0.45 percent of the EU’s trade with Canada. So much for people power! Sources for the graph: Erik’s calculations using Eurostat; OECD; Politico. Note: based on …
Updated – CETA Freeland walks out of Wallonia talks
Last update on 21 October 2017. 17.00 CET. Canada’s trade minister walked out of talks with the Wallonian government on Friday (21 October 2016) afternoon. Fresh language in the ‘interpretative declaration’ of CETA agreed yesterday night (20 October 2016) between the Wallonian leader Paul Magnette and the EU …
Insight: CETA reveals structural flaws of Lisbon Treaty
We are very close to a deadline for the 28 European Union member states to endorse the flagship CETA agreement. Whether the Canadian trade agreement gets endorsed this week to pave the way for an EU Canada summit on Thursday (27 October 2016) or not: CETA is a lesson in what …
TTIP: Oettinger in conciliatory mode on digital
The Commission’s Commissioner in charge of the digital economy Günther Oettinger, and famed for erring on the defensive side when it comes to handling US digital firms and shield German telecommunications champions from their market dominance, has come back from a trip to the United States with a few conciliatory …
Commission to leverage TDI to tackle market interventionism
The EU Commission appears eager to reassure critics on both sides of the China market economy status debate in Europe that it is doing something. In fact it looks as if most China trade files are stuck, or at the very least advancing at snails’ pace. The EU and China …
Germany says provisional application of CETA to fall through if deal rejected by one state
Germany has given the green light to the signing of the Canada EU trade deal at a Council meeting today following a ruling by its constitutional court that rejected requests made by NGOs to issue an injunction to the German government to stop the CETA approval process. But Berlin wants CETA …
CETA: three member states still to appease
As expected Belgium was not able to give the green light to the signature of CETA at a trade minister’s meeting this morning in Luxembourg. Romania and Bulgaria, though apparently not actively opposing signature of CETA, continue to express their ‘reservations’. Without unanimous approval, the painstakingly negotiated free trade agreement between …
Sri Lanka hopes to regain GSP Plus status in early 2017
Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe is in Brussels to negotiate on the island nation’s GSP Plus status. His is a delicate mission as the EU has set the bar high. Back in 2010, Sri Lanka lost the EU’s ‘extra’ preferential trade status given by the EU to developing economies that …
