OTTAWA — Germany’s ambassador to Canada says European Union members cannot “opt out” of portions of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, including the contentious dispute-settlement clause. The remarks by Werner Wnendt would seem to confirm — despite recent speculation to the contrary — that the long-anticipated CETA deal is on track for completion.
The 28-nation EU “is a single market, so you can have only one trade and economic agreement that must apply to all member states,” Werner Wnendt said in an interview, just days after Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his EU counterparts signed off on the final CETA text during a leaders summit in Ottawa.
I’m very confident that we can sort this out. This, in no way, endangers the CETA agreement
Canada-EU pact was concluded last October after years of negotiations. While the text was released in August to Canadian and European government officials, the full agreement — a 1,500-word document — was not released publicly until last Friday.
That was supposed to mark the end of the negotiation stage, with ratification by all participants expected to be completed and the deal implemented early in 2016. But lingering concerns remain among some European officials, most vocally from Germany’s Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who has expressed some concerns over the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) clause that would allow foreign companies to challenge domestic rules in independent tribunals.
“Raising certain issues doesn’t mean that there’s opposition to the concept, to the idea, even to the wording of the text,” Mr. Wnendt said. “I’m very confident that we can sort this out. This, in no way, endangers the CETA agreement.”
Asked whether one or more EU members could be excluded from clauses in CETA, such as the ISDS provision, the ambassador replied: “No, there is no opt-out.”
“Of course, you have to take the concerns of your own citizens seriously. And that is what we have seen in recent days and weeks, and that has been reported as Germany is not, well, supporting the CETA agreement, which is absolutely wrong,” he said.
“Germany is very supportive to this agreement [and] was from the very, very beginning. We think this is the right thing to do. It’s an excellent agreement. It’s a very comprehensive one.”
Mr. Wnendt, as Germany’s top representative in Canada, has found himself at the centre of the CETA-ISDS debate. It is an issue that has also taken on broader implications for the EU, which is two years into negotiations for a similar agreement with the United States, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
Cecilia Malmstrom, who takes over as EU’s trade commissioner in November, has already signaled she is not in favour of reopening talks on CETA to possibly eliminate the ISDS clause “because then you would open the whole Canada agreement and it would risk falling apart.”
“Does this mean that we’ll include it [ISDS] automatically in the TTIP? No. . . . I doubt that in the end it will be taken out of this, but this is too early to say.”
Mr. Wnendt stressed that CETA “is not a blueprint for the TTIP agreement.”
While acknowledging CETA “sets standards” for similar agreements, he said “the situation in every country is different.”
“Of course, not standard in the sense that any future agreement must be exactly like CETA — a blueprint for future agreements — but it certainly has ideas regarding free trade, regarding investment, regarding even access to labour markets, and so on and so forth, which we share with Canada,” he said.
For his part, International Trade Minister Ed Fast said CETA is “the most comprehensive trade agreement that Canada has ever signed.”
“We want Canadian businesses to take advantage of this agreement, now,” he told members of Parliament on Wednesday. “This is a brand new opportunity for Canadian exporters and investors.”
As for reopening up CETA talks, one Canadian government official said bluntly: “Negotiations are over.”
“The text has been released in Canada and Europe and provinces and EU members have had it since Aug.15,” the official said. “The investor-state dispute was actually agreed to back in October in the agreement-in-principle supported by all.”
As for the apparent split in the European Union, “it’s internal politics within Germany and with the EU commission.”
Even so, Mr. Wnendt said “in negotiations, there are certain rules. And one rule is that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. And then it’s final.”
“This is a long process,” he added.
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