The EU-Canada Free Trade Agreement: What is on the Table for Agriculture?

In October 2008 French President Nicholas Sarkozy and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that the EU and Canada would seek a free trade agreement and in May 2009 negotiations on a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) commenced. There have been a number of negotiating sessions since then and good progress has been reported. One of the more difficult sectors was expected to be agriculture. This paper outlines the major opportunities for expanded agricultural trade between the EU and Canada as well as those areas where the negotiations are expected to be particularly difficult. Topics include, subsidies, sanitary and phytosanitary barriers to trade, tariffs, tariff line adjustments, regulatory harmonization, protection for geographical indications, barriers to trade in genetically modified products and TRQs in the Canadian dairy sector. A section on opportunities and concerns of particular interest to the agri-food sector of the UK is included. The paper concludes with a discussion of the expected outcome and degree of trade expansion that will follow a successful conclusion to the negotiations.