CETA: Walloon acceptance of flawed Canada-Europe trade....

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Walloon acceptance of flawed Canada-Europe trade deal does Canada no favours: Walkom

[ https://www.thestar.com/opinion/comment ... alkom.html ]

Canada's proposed pact with the European Union was bad enough before. It is worse now.

By Thomas WalkomNational Affairs Columnist Fri., Oct. 28, 2016

A Belgian region’s decision to let the Canada-European Union trade deal go forward is being portrayed as victory for Canada. It is not.

The so-called Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the 28-member EU was flawed before it ran into opposition from Belgium’s francophone region of Wallonia. It is more so now.

In particular, the deal as written contains a fundamental imbalance. European firms would be able to challenge, at special investment courts, Canadian laws and regulations that interfere with profit-making.

But Canadian firms would have the same rights only in those EU countries that specifically allow such challenges. That’s because the EU treats the proposed Investment Court System as a matter of national, rather than Pan-European, concern.

In Canada, on the other hand, investment courts need only the imprimatur of the federal government to come into effect.

As Osgoode Hall law professor and trade expert Gus Van Harten notes, this is not a trivial matter. Many Europeans are wary of allowing foreign corporations to override domestic laws. Any proposal to set up investment courts is sure to run into tough opposition in European legislatures.

Such opposition was one of the reasons behind Wallonia’s initial decision to veto CETA. Under EU rules, the unanimous consent of all 28 member governments — including Belgium’s — is needed to ratify the deal.

Under Belgian rules, the consent of the country’s regions — including Wallonia — is needed to sign any international pact. When tiny Wallonia (its population is 3.5 million) used those rules to hold up CETA, Ottawa was taken aback.

The Walloon move scuppered a carefully choreographed plan to have Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fly to Brussels to sign the agreement.

Theoretically, that signing can now go ahead. But as Van Harten points out, Ottawa may want to put the investment court portion of the deal on ice until the EU nations decide which of them will agree to it.

The Guardian reports that as part of its deal with Wallonia, Belgium has agreed to ask the European Court of Justice whether the investment court dispute settlement proposal is even legal.

It is possible that, in the end, the controversial dispute settlement system will be scrapped entirely.

If so, that would remove one of the worst elements of CETA. A similar dispute settlement system in the North American Free Trade Agreement has allowed foreign firms to override domestic environmental laws.

But even if the investor courts are scrapped, much else is wrong with CETA.

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