The trade section of the agreement between the EU and Canada, CETA has been in provisional application since 21 September 2017.
On 24 November 2023, a bilateral summit between Canada and the EU was held in Saint John’s, providing an opportunity for both parties to express their satisfaction with the economic benefits of CETA and to announce the creation of a so-called new "Green Alliance". At the launch of this alliance, Justin Trudeau and Ursula Von der Leyen reaffirmed " their unwavering commitment to the Paris Agreement, and its strengthened implementation". However, the initial results of the provisional application of the trade section of CETA do not support this commitment.
In January 2024, the agreement has been the subject of new discussions in the European Parliament with the adoption of a very positive resolution on CETA, led by Javier Moreno Sanchez (a Spanish MEP from the Social Democrat group), which aims to urge all EU Member States to ratify CETA to trigger the agreement’s definitive application.
In March 2024, the French Senate rejected the CETA ratification bill by a very large majority. This vote raises major new uncertainties about the EU’s ability to ratify the agreement definitively.
Six years after the provisional application of the agreement commenced, it is now possible to formulate an initial qualitative and quantitative assessment of the impacts of CETA. Few analyses or evaluations have been published thus far, and in this regard, the European Parliament’s draft report appears quite incomplete. The European Commission drew up fact sheets in September 2022, to mark 5 years of provisional application. But these documents present the information in a very positive light, even when the facts say otherwise.
Overall the economic impacts have been reduced and CETA is not a beneficial agreement for the environment.
As anticipated, the marginal impact of the provisional application of the CETA since 2017 is barely perceptible. In terms of volume, EU exports increased by just 0.7% between 2017 and 2022 (compared to 34% between 2012 and 2017, in the period preceding the provisional application of the agreement). Reduced customs duties coupled with trade facilitation measures contributed to increasing European imports of fossil fuels (including oil from tar sands), minerals, fertilizers, chemicals and plastics. The sectors that contribute most to the exchange of services, and whose growth is most substantial, are the travel and transport sectors, both of which generate significant GHG emissions.
Canada continuously put pressure against existing EU standards and their planned reinforcement via the dialogue and regulatory cooperation mechanisms. For example, in the CETA’s Joint Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, Canada continuously calls into question the legitimacy of European rules designed to guarantee that foodstuffs, animals and animal products placed on the EU market meet the obligation to ensure a high level of protection for human and animal health and the environment. Canada does the same at the multilateral level through WTO committees.
Regarding investment, the part not applied for the moment concerns the investment protection chapter, which will only be implemented if all the entities of the European member states that have not yet ratified CETA do so. But, here again, the content of the chapter on investment already seems out of date. The CETA’s chapter on investment protection is in no way in line with the new requirements laid down by the European Parliament following the modernisation of the Energy Charter Treaty. Fossil investments are covered, the standards of protection remain too broad and vague and there is a 20 years sunset clause.