OTTAWA—The European Union parliament approved a trade deal with Canada on Wednesday after three hours of debate and years of negotiations.
The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the European Union, also known as CETA, was adopted by a vote of 408-254 with 33 abstentions.
Here are some facts about the deal:
- Canada is the EU’s 12th most important trading partner. The EU is Canada’s second-largest trading partner after the U.S. and accounts for nearly 10 per cent of its external trade.
- The agreement would eliminate about 98 per cent of the tariffs on both sides of the deal.
- A joint Canada-EU study concluded that the trade agreement could increase bilateral trade by 20 per cent annually.
- The study suggested the economic benefit of the agreement would be equivalent to creating almost 80,000 new jobs or increasing the average Canadian household’s annual income by $1,000.
- The first round of negotiations was held in Ottawa in October 2009 and an agreement in principle was announced four years later. After fine-tuning some contentious clauses, a final legal text was released in February 2016.
- Adoption of the deal in Europe was nearly scuttled by Wallonia, a Belgian region of 3.6 million people. A final round of negotiation saved the agreement from a Walloon veto that would have ended seven tough years of talks.
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