EU, Canada Confirm CETA Provisional Application Date

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau released a joint statement this weekend announcing that the provisional application of the planned EU-Canada trade accord will begin in just over two months’ time. “Meeting at the G20 in Hamburg, reconfirming our joint commitment to the rules-based international trading system, we agreed to set the date of 21 September 2017 to start the provisional application of the agreement, thus allowing for all the necessary implementing measures to be taken before that date,” the leaders said on 8 July. They also touted the accord’s potential in cementing their commitment to shared values across various areas, which they explained could transform globalisation in the direction of a model that best supports their citizens – while also beginning “a new chapter in the relationship between the EU and Canada.” The news that the implementation of the bulk of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) will begin later this year comes after weeks of haggling over implementation issues, such as how tariff-rate quotas will be divvied up in Canada regarding imported European cheeses and what this means for market access in practice – even though the trade accord itself has been...