CETA - Canadian-European trade agreement

Member states and economic power

In the current composition of the EU, a total of 30 parties (29 countries + EU) are involved in the agreement. Together, they have a total of 557.92 million inhabitants and thus account for around 7.0% of the world's population. The economic output of all participating states most recently amounted to 23.830 trillion US dollars, which corresponds to 22.60% of the global economy.

Objectives of the trade agreement

CETA aims to reduce or eliminate trade barriers between Canada and EU member states in order to promote trade and investment. The main objectives include:

• The elimination of tariffs on 98% of classes of goods traded between the countries.
• Facilitating access to public tenders so that Canadian and European companies can participate on an equal footing in each other's public tenders.
• Creating a more transparent regulatory environment that encourages investment and reduces business uncertainty.
• Facilitating the exchange of employees between Canada and the EU.
• Strengthening the protection of intellectual property.

For these purposes, CETA includes an extensive list of regulations on trade, investment, access to markets, services and dealing with state monopolies. An important component is also the chapter on investment protection and dispute settlement, which introduces a new Investment Court System (ICS) to negotiate disputes between investors and states.

However, the provisions on investment protection in particular have also attracted criticism. There are fears that the agreement gives multinational companies too much power and could restrict the ability of governments to act in the public interest. The final ratification of the agreement still depends on the approval of all EU member states, which has proven to be a lengthy process and is still ongoing.

The agreement cannot enter into force until Canada and at least all EU countries have completed national ratification. Individual areas can only be implemented now on the basis of "provisional application".

Dependent territories

Some of the above-mentioned member states have other external territories dependent on them. These are not independent states, but they do have some economic and political autonomy. The CETA treaties apply to them at least in part. These countries are not listed as official member states.