EU and Canada agree to set a date for the provisional application of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA)
The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, today issued the following joint statement on July 08, 2017 in Hamburg, Germany:
“The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) marks a new chapter in the relationship between the European Union (EU) and Canada.
“It is by opening up to each other, by working closely with those who share the same values that we will shape and harness globalisation.
“It is important that our companies and citizens, the real winners with this agreement, start reaping its benefits without further ado.
“Both at the EU level and in Canada, the necessary steps were taken to ratify the agreement.
“Meeting at the G20 in Hamburg, reconfirming our joint commitment to the rules-based international trading system, we agreed to set the date of September 21, 2017 to start the provisional application of the agreement, thus allowing for all the necessary implementing measures to be taken before that date.
“The agreement will now be provisionally applied and will enter definitively into force once the parliaments in all Member States of the EU ratify the text according to their respective domestic constitutional requirements.â€
Canadian importers may benefit from the Canada-EU CETA duty relief commitments made in respect of imports originating in the 28 European Union countries, which are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.