CETA trade deal blocked

Date: 24 October 2016

Responding to the news that the EU was unable to sign CETA, the free trade deal between Canada and the EU as had originally been planned on Thursday, as a result of the Belgian prime minister failing to secure the support of regional authorities, Guy Taylor the trade campaigner for Global Justice Now said:

“CETA has failed because these secretive negotiations were exposed to be much more about enhancing corporate power rather than about lowering trade barriers, and the toxic trade deal was being railroaded through by an increasingly remote and inflexible EU Commission. The entire trade agenda of the European Union now lies in tatters and needs reworking from scratch. This is an ideal opportunity to create a trade regime that prioritises people, while safe-guarding their health, their rights and the environment.

“Three and a half million people told the EU last year that these corporate power grabs were unacceptable. Brussels carried on regardless and now the architects of CETA are tasting the bitter fruits of failure. This should be a lesson to Jean-Claude Juncker and Cecilia Malmstrom and other EU politicians that their mandate is to represent people’s need not corporate greed.”