Canadian and European Union trade negotiators continue to make progress in talks over a potential free trade deal, leaving food sector leaders dreaming of a potential multibillion-dollar market opportunity.
In late January, negotiators ended their second round of talks in Brussels and agreed to meet in Ottawa in April.
“The negotiations in Brussels went very well,” European Commission communications official Roy Christensen said in Ottawa. The EU is not commenting further on the trade talks while they are in progress, he added.
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Kathleen Sullivan, executive director of the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, who was in Brussels to monitor the talks, said both sides remain committed to a deal by 2011.
Steve Verheul, Canada’s chief negotiator, said in a speech late last year that the negotiations are not open-ended. Talks would likely end if a deal is not possible in the allotted time.
“I think after two sessions, they are further along than most negotiations are after a year,” she said. “I am very optimistic,” said Sullivan.
A joint Canada-EU study before negotiations began predicted that a deal that ended food and agriculture tariffs and nontariff barriers could open up more than $3 billion in market opportunities for Canada by 2014, including $1.2 billion for sales of grain, oilseed, livestock and meat.
Sullivan called it an unprecedented opportunity and the biggest bilateral negotiation since the 1988 Canada-United States Trade Agreement. It has the potential to be even more wide-ranging because provinces are involved and government procurement rules are on the table.
She sees a “perfect match” of European desire to win access for their companies to bid on provincial, municipal and federal procurement contracts and Canada’s desire to get better access for agriculture and food products.
“That seems to me to be a perfect trade off that would benefit our sector,” she said.
Gordon Bacon, chief executive officer of Pulse Canada, said pulse crops usually enter Europe duty-free but the industry hopes a deal would reduce or eliminate duties on processed pulse products.
Trade analysts suggest negotiations may slow when topics move to sensitive domestic interests. The European dairy sector would like more access to Canada for cheese, but the Canadian dairy sector has rejected the proposal, supported by a federal promise not to sign a deal that would compromise supply management.
Ottawa-based trade analyst Peter Clark said the politically sensitive negotiations have yet to start.
“They are negotiating on a sectoral basis for agriculture, pork for pork, dairy for dairy,” he said by e-mail after discussing the negotiations with a European contact. “They will be engaging in a serious way in April. That is when the horse trading starts.”
Still, the prospects of success are enough that an anti-free trade coalition has formed to oppose the possibility of a deal, arguing it would erode Canadian sovereignty and governments’ ability to enact policies.
The Council of Canadians, an assortment of unions and environmental groups, said an aggressive deal called for by governments on both sides would be bad for Canadians, raising the spectre of privatizing municipal services, legal challenges to environmental laws and privatization of Canada Post.
