Italy’s agriculture minister has hinted that his country’s legislature might not ratify a major free trade agreement between the EU and Canada, citing concerns over whether the existing accord provides sufficient protections for signature Italian foodstuffs. “We will not ratify the free trade treaty with Canada because it protects only a small part of our PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) and PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) products,” said minister of agriculture Gian Marco Centinaio in an interview with La Stampa, an Italian newspaper. “We will ask the Parliament not to ratify the treaty and the others similar to CETA,” Centinaio warned, after a comment on the accord’s export promotion for industrial products. He claimed that this statement was not only the position of his own political party, which recently took office as part of a coalition government, but that “doubts about this agreement are common to many of my European colleagues.” He did not specify, however, which countries or country officials might share some of these views. Whether Centinaio’s position is that of the whole Italian government has also not been made immediately clear. Responding to Centinaio’s comments, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said in a radio interview that she...