Belgians Finally Agree to Support CETA

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Belgian politicians have finally agreed to resolve an impasse over the Canada-European Union trade treaty, CETA, on condition of key changes to be made later before it is approved by EU nations. The agreement was reached between the heads of Belgium’s six regional and linguistic parliaments on Thursday and officials from the European Commission in order to clear the way for Belgium to sign the trade deal, known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement.

Earlier, three Belgian parliaments had opposed CETA while three others and the federal government approved the deal. However, the Belgium’s constitutions states that all domestic governments had to approve the deal before the country could sign it so it become a major roadblock as they disputed resolution system provision in CETA known as the Investment Court System, or ICS. Critics feared the ICS gave too much power to corporations and would undermine governments’ ability to regulate.

Now the Belgian politicians and officials from the European Commission have assured to suspend the application of the ICS until all EU member nations have ratified the treaty. Now the Belgium agreement forces the ICS to be adopted provisionally and only come into force once every EU nation has ratified the treaty. An MP in the Brussels city state region, Hamza Fassi Firhi, explained that “it would be suspended during the ratification process, and that could take a couple of years,” adding that “during this period the European Commission would commit to improve the system and to go towards a model of a multilateral international court system instead of the ICS.”

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