Activities of Saskia BRICMONT related to 2023/2001(INI)
Plenary speeches (1)
Implementation of the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) (short presentation)
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT on the implementation of the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA)
Amendments (30)
Amendment 4 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 2 a (new)
Citation 2 a (new)
– having regard to the Joint Interpretative Instrument on the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union and its Member States, in particular its article 10 on the review of its TSD provisions and the stakeholders consultation,
Amendment 5 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 2 b (new)
Citation 2 b (new)
– having regard to the Opinion 2/15 of the European Court of Justice pursuant to Article 218(11) TFEU on the Free Trade Agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Singapore,
Amendment 6 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 2 c (new)
Citation 2 c (new)
– having regard to the Joint Declarations of the EU and the Canada Domestic Advisory Groups (DAGs),
Amendment 7 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 3 a (new)
Citation 3 a (new)
– having regard to the Commission Communication of 22 June 2022 entitled: “The power of trade partnerships: together for green and just economic growth” (COM(2022)409,
Amendment 13 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 5 a (new)
Citation 5 a (new)
– having regard to the European Parliament resolution of 23 June 2022 on the future of EU international investment policy,
Amendment 25 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas CETA was the firstsecond trade agreement the EU completed with another major established OECD economy after South Korea; whereas it was also the most ambitiouscomprehensive agreement either the EU or Canada had concluded at the time, including unprecedented access to public procurement at sub-federal as well as federal level;
Amendment 30 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas important provisions, in particular relating to investment protection which is a contentious issue, have still not been applied, as not all Member States have ratified the agreement; where Canada and the EU are finalizing a draft Decision of the CETA Joint Committee on the interpretation of certain terms in Article 8.10, Annex 8-A and Article 8.39 specifying the remit of right to regulate in the context of the investment protection chapter and on the facilitation of the access by SMEs to the investment court system under CETA;
Amendment 35 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital C a (new)
Recital C a (new)
Amendment 41 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital F
Recital F
F. whereas the institutional framework under CETA is now fully in place, with 19 specialised committees, a regulatory cooperation forum and a civil society forum, and their agendas and reportre publicly available while detailed minutes of the meetings are not publicly available;
Amendment 43 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital F a (new)
Recital F a (new)
F a. whereas the CETA has been complemented by a Green Alliance Initiative, a Strategic Partnership on Raw Materials, an EU-Canada Digital Partnership and an Ocean Partnership;
Amendment 44 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital F b (new)
Recital F b (new)
F b. whereas Canada is an active participant of the WTO Dialogue on Plastics Pollution and Environmentally Sustainable Plastics Trade and the WTO Trade and Environment Committee but is not a member of the Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform (FFSR) initiative;
Amendment 45 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital G
Recital G
G. whereas there is now sufficient experience, data and statistical information to assess the implean ex post evaluation of CETA is yet to provide detailed data of the impacts of the Agremeent and, where appropriate, recommentdation of CETAs to improve it;
Amendment 48 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital G a (new)
Recital G a (new)
G a. whereas Canada is a world leader in the co-construction of Public Policy for the Social and Solidarity Economy and whereas Social and Solidarity Economy represents almost 10% of the Gross Domestic Product in certain provinces, like Quebec, providing for approximately 210 000 jobs;
Amendment 60 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Notes with satisfaction that trade in goods between the EU and Canada increased by 53 % between 2017 and 2022, while EU-Canada trade in services increased by 46 %, outperforming other extra-EU trade; welcomes the fact that EU goods exports to Canada increased by 47 % during the first five years of provisional application, where the biggest gains were registered in the cases of manufactured products, chemical products as well as food and animal products; notes that none of the data actually provided thus far displays a regional break down allowing to assess the country-specific impacts among the Member States;
Amendment 74 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Notes that the utilisation rate of the tariff rate quota (TRQ) for beef and veal imports to the EU was only 3 % in 2021, and that EU exporters have expanded their market share in Canada, such that the EU exports more frozen beef to Canada than it imports from it; notes however that the utilisation rate of this TRQ may change over time as a result of variations in Canada's other export markets (in particular the US and China);
Amendment 75 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 a (new)
Paragraph 8 a (new)
8 a. Is concerned that according to the audit report of the European Commisison´s Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (2022), "the competent authority actions undertaken in response to the relevant recommendations (i.e. in relation to the traceability of EU-eligible cattle, the low performance of approved veterinarians responsible for official controls on primary production and to the supervision of these approved veterinarians) cannot be considered effective in satisfactorily addressing the shortcomings identified at holding level during the 2019 audit”;
Amendment 82 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Calls on the parties to make available all the legal and administrative support and tools SMEs need to engage in trade and investment under CETA, in order to foster an increase in exchanges and to enhance participation so they can reap the benefits of CETA, including through active measures to facilitate the internationalisation of SMEs; welcomes, in this regard, the recommendation on SMEs adopted by the Joint Committee in 2018, and the subsequent action plans, including concrete actions such as the launch of the Access2Markets platform in October 2020, which supports SMEs with practical information on trade agreements and trade barriers; expects the ex-post evaluation to provide data on the evolution of the share of trade between EU and Canada carried out by SMEs; calls on the Parties to contemplate the possibility of a fully- fledged chapter on SMEs like in the Agreements with New Zealand and Chile;
Amendment 86 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 a (new)
Paragraph 13 a (new)
13 a. Given the importance of the Social and Solidarity Economy sector in Canada and the EC Action Plan on Social Economy adopted by the European Commission on 9th December 2021, calls on the Joint Committee to identify what concrete measures could be put in place to promote more cooperation between Social and Solidarity actors across the Atlantic;
Amendment 87 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 b (new)
Paragraph 13 b (new)
13 b. Notes that the Investment Chapter is not in line with the approach recommended by the EP in its Resolution on the future of EU international investment policy when it comes to the protection of investments in fossil fuel, the right to regulate and issues related to investors’ substantive rights, or the duration of the sunset clause; calls on the Parties to review this Chapter accordingly;
Amendment 88 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Encourages both parties to continue their outreach activities, in particular focusing on SMEs and on Social and Solidarity Economy actors, to raise awareness about the opportunities offered by CETA through targeted information campaigns, while ensuring that the benefits of the agreement are shared equally between men and women;
Amendment 90 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. Welcomes the adoption of the recommendation on Trade and Gender by the CETA Joint Committee as early as 2018, which includes a commitment to share methods and procedures for the collection of gender disaggregated data, the use of indicators, monitoring and evaluation methodologies, and the analysis of gender-focused statistics related to trade; takes the view that the work carried out under the jointly adopted action plan can serve as an example for other trade agreements, even when there are no dedicated chapters on trade and gender in the agreement itself; recalls the EP resolution on the Gender Action Plan III and encourages the Commission to publish more easily accessible gender disaggregated data on the usage of the agreement, especially in relation with the Chapters on Public Procurement and on Trade and Labour;
Amendment 92 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. Underlines that CETA provides a framework that fosters both trade and climate action by including commitments to cooperate on trade-related environmental issues of common interest such as climate change, as demonstrated by the recommendation on trade, climate action and the Paris Agreement; welcomes the growth of the environmental goods trade by 27 % since provisional application startednotes however that Canada often considers as technical barriers to trade the precautionary principle and some European legislative and non-legislative initiatives (deforestation, pesticides, fertilisers, antimicrobial and antibiotic resistance, neonicotinoids...) that are key to implement the European Green Deal;
Amendment 97 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16 a (new)
Paragraph 16 a (new)
16 a. Welcomes the growth of the environmental goods trade by 27 % since provisional application started; invites the Parties to find synergies with the implementation of CBAM in the EU and jointly support work to develop joint or comparable carbon emissions methodologies at international level;
Amendment 99 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Welcomes the active involvement and monitoring of CETA implementation by the domestic advisory groups (DAGs) and the Civil Society Forum, which gatherings hundreds of representatives from across the EU and Canada, including businesses, environmental and labour organisations, civil society, academia as well as indigenous people’s representatives from Canada, and actively contributing to the work of in particular the Trade and Sustainable Development Committee, notably through their joint statements of their DAGs; urges the Commission and the TSD Board to follow up on their proposals; stresses that the mandate of the DAGs should be to consider the sustainability impact of the full agreement;
Amendment 101 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. Insists on the effective implementation of the specific commitments related to the trade and sustainable development (TSD) provisions, including the early TSD review committed to in the Joint Interpretative Instrument (JII), which are an integral part of CETA and are essential to the accomplishment of the objectives set; takes note that in 2024 the Commission will conduct an ex post evaluation of CETA, including its TSD chapter, involving independent experts; deplores that not only are the TSD provisions not aligned with the European Commission's new approach of June 2022, but the EU has also rejected the concrete proposals put forward by Canada in 2020 to give a more binding scope to certain provisions of this chapter;
Amendment 106 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 a (new)
Paragraph 18 a (new)
18 a. Recalls that in its Opinion 2/50, the European Court of Justice concluded that “the European Union enjoys exclusive external competence [when it comes to] trade and sustainable development in so far as the provisions in question primarily relate to commercial policy instruments”; is of the view that the Commission is therefore entitled to negotiate on behalf of the Member States an alignment of the TSD Chapter on the recent sustainability proposals and that it would have no consequences in terms of ratification in the Member States;
Amendment 107 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 b (new)
Paragraph 18 b (new)
18 b. Invites the Parties to agree upon an interpretative declaration clarifying that pursuant to Opinion 2/15 of the ECJ, “a breach of the provisions concerning social protection of workers and environmental protection (...) authorises the other Party — in accordance with the rule of customary international law codified in Article 60(1) of the Convention on the law of treaties, signed in Vienna on 23 May 1969 (...) — to terminate or suspend the liberalisation, provided for in the other provisions of the envisaged agreement, of that trade” (para 161);
Amendment 108 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 c (new)
Paragraph 18 c (new)
18 c. Calls for the CETA Joint Committee to adopt as per Articles 26.1§4e and 26.3 a binding decision establishing implementation roadmaps to strengthen cooperation in areas where the ex post evaluation would identify shortcomings and room for improvement;
Amendment 110 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19
Paragraph 19
19. Calls on the parties to conclude the early TSD review of CETA in order to introduce a suitable and effective dispute settlement mechanism for the provisions on trade and labour and trade and environment, including the consideration of, among various enforcement methods, sanctions as a deterrent to be used, as a last resort, in the case of serious breaches of the Paris Climate Agreement and the ILO fundamental labour principles;
Amendment 119 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20
Paragraph 20
20. UrgInvites Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland and Slovenia to ratify CETA, as this will also be essential in order to update the agreement, and reiterates the importance of full application of CETA, including its investment protection provisionswait for (a) the results of the future ex post evaluation assessment and accompanying proposals and (b) the alignment of CETA to the updated EU approach on trade and sustainable development chapters before they complete the ratification of CETA;