This article was last updated on April 16, 2022
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The Belgian region of Wallonia has once again rejected the planned Canada-EU free trade agreement, CETA, on Thursday regardless of some newly proposed amendments as it reiterated its opposition and continued to threaten the entire deal. The agreement has acquired support of 28 EU governments but Belgium has failed to gain a positive response from its five sub-federal administrations and French-speaking Wallonia.
The EU leaders are joining again on a two-day summit in Brussels with trade policy as their main topic for Friday. The chairman of the summit and European Council President, Donald Tusk, posted a tweet and said the Europe’s credibility was at stake due to Wallonia that is home to just 3.5 million people, which is less than 1 percent of the 507 million Europeans CETA would affect.
New concessions have already been proposed to the EU declaration and the Walloon premier, Paul Magnette, has called an emergency session of his government to discuss them. However, his government has already announced that the new improvements did not go far enough so it needed time to reflect. Magnette is due to address the Walloon parliament on Friday.
Addressing reporters in the regional capita Namur, Magnette claimed that “at this stage, for us, the document is not sufficient.” Magnette is due to meet Canadian Trade Minister, Chrystia Freeland, again on Friday after the previous was meeting on Wednesday. Magnette states that “we’ll see how we can modify the text that we were given.” Meanwhile at the summit in Brussels, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has alleged that “I am still hopeful that we will come to a good result in the course of the night and tomorrow morning.”
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