Lawmakers in the Belgian region of Wallonia voted on Friday to block the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with Canada. European and US media widely report. “I will not give powers to the federal government and Belgium will not sign CETA on October 18,” Paul Magnette, the socialist head of the Wallonia government, stated at an emergency session of the regional parliament, as quoted by Dnevnik.bg – October 18 being the date when a decision should be made in Luxembourg by the 28 EU trade ministers.
However, Austrian media report that Paul Magnette underlined that he does not oppose CETA on principle. According to Politiken, Paul Magnette is now under major pressure to find another way to get the trade agreement approved. Before the CETA agreement can be signed at an EU-Canada summit in two weeks, French President François Hollande and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel must convince the Walloons to approve CETA, Berlingske Tidende writes. The vote of Wallonia threatens to derail the long-delayed signing by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of the pact in Brussels later this month, Dnevnik.bg reports; and certain chapters of CETA will need to be renegotiated, Magyar Nemzet comments.
CETA is now held up due to a vote in the tiny Belgian region of Wallonia, Simon Nixon sums up in the WSJE. The move is also seen by Dnevnik.bg as seriously complicating future talks with the US and a non-EU Britain. German media criticise the ratification procedure and claim that EC President Juncker’s decision to let CETA be ratified by all member states seems doubtful.
In Belgium, former European Commissioner Karel De Gucht is quoted as saying, that trade is an exclusive competence of the EU; and that the fact that all national parliaments have to approve CETA goes against this principle. Besides Belgium, Austria, Slovenia and Germany also had reservations about CETA, Magyar Nemzet reports, and the Financial Times says that EU officials see Belgium’s former Prime Minister and Socialist Party leader, Elio Di Rupo, as the person who could put a stop to the trade deal between the EU and Canada, believing him to be the driving force behind the regional resistance to CETA.
According to Het Financieele Dagblad, opposition in Belgium may seem larger than it actually is. The Dutch newspaper notes that the opposition is led by the Socialist Party, which has ample motives to undermine the Federal government, in which it has no seat, and that the crisis is also a fight between the Walloons and the Flemish. There are political motives in the rejection, by the parliament of Wallonia, of CETA, Terzake confirms.
In an editorial for Libération, Jean Quatremer argues, that even though it is partly due to Belgian domestic political reasons, the rejection of the CETA by three Belgian regional parliaments confirms, that public opinion strongly opposes a globalisation that does not benefit everyone. On Saturday, thousands of people indeed demonstrated against CETA and TAFTA in France, Poland and Spain. Demonstrators claim the agreements will only serve the interests of multinational companies, to the detriment of the population and of the environment, and European governments must take citizens’ opinions into account, Radio România Actualităţi reports.
Apart from the tiny regional government of Wallonia, almost all initially reluctant countries have been persuaded to sign the agreement, Gazeta Wyborcza reports. There will be intense efforts this week to seal the EU-Canada trade deal, The Irish Times reports, a comment echoed in L’Humanité. Despite the Walloons’ veto and citizens’ protests on Saturday, its supporters, especially France and the European Commission, are intensifying their pressure, L’Humanité says. “With so many powerful EU member states motivated to keep going forward, such as France and Germany, this agreement will be signed”, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said as he welcomed his French counterpart Manuel Valls.
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