7 ms·

Canada-EU trade talks with Wallonia collapse as Freeland heads home

44 points by kukx 10y ago

ap3 10y ago
Read Wallonia and thought this was about some SeaLand clone - I checked the URL expecting it to be the Onion
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- tormeh 10y ago
  It's complex... Belgium is divided into two major regions: Flandern and Wallonia. Flandern speaks Dutch and Wallonia speaks French. Initially, Wallonia didn't want to share its riches with the poor Flemish, wich meant a strong separation between them, but now it's the other way around. Basically, Belgium is two countries pretending to be one. It's one of many ways in which Belgium is messed up politically. Fun (sad) fact: Belgium has the most national politicians per capita in the world. Fun (sad) fact 2: Belgium holds the record for longest period without a government, with Iraq in second place. 589 days. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80%9311_Belgian_government_formation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80%9311_Belgian_govern...)
  - icc97 10y ago
    Flanders [1] not Flandern. But you're quite right about the rest. Belgium is indeed a mess. I moved there from the UK 6 years ago expecting to find a country benefitting from a more open minded dual-language socialist life style. But instead its just nothing more than petty in-fighting. The Flemish speak better English than they do French. The two countries would love to split up but they both want Brussels which is in the Flemish half but mostly French speaking. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanders
  - kwhitefoot 10y ago
    But Belgium survived quite well without a government because the civil service kept on working. It seems that governments aren't as important as they like to think; at least on a day to day basis.
    - tormeh 10y ago
      It's like not paying for software support and upgrades. The bugs won't be fixed, but newer ones won't be introduced either.
HorizonXP 10y ago
I'm not well-versed in these trade talks, but you know what really grinds my gears about Canada's current protectionism? Butter. No, really. In Canada, the dairy industry is run by a single co-op. That means that all milk and milk-based products must be sourced from the co-op (i.e. your provincial dairy bank). So all butter in Canada comes from the provincial supply. Want locally-sourced butter? It's nearly impossible to obtain, and even if you can, it's extremely expensive due to tariffs. Want butter that's completely grass-fed? It's possible, but also extremely expensive, and it comes from the provincial bank, so it's possibly mixed with other cows and/or milk. And all butter is 80% milk fat, which is abysmally low. European dairy is 85%, sometimes 90+%. Only very recently has it been possible to buy "New Zealand" grass-fed butter here, but it's $11 per 1/2 pound, likely due to import tariffs. And it goes through a local dairy, so I'm not 100% confident it's truly New Zealand milk. Nor can I confirm its fat percentage, so I could be just paying for a lot of water. If you want to drive across the border to buy butter and bring it back, be prepared to answer a lot of questions to the CBSA, and possibly pay more tariffs, making it prohibitively expensive. This applies to most other agricultural products too, like cheese, eggs, wheat, and more. Getting good cheese in Canada is expensive and hard. The fact that the article mentions that the CETA made strides in agricultural issues tells me that what I cited above is a possible issue in these trade negotiations. The same was true for TPP. I'll be really happy when these trade deals pass so I can get some real food at a decent price, and my local farmers can be given an opportunity to compete. Until then, the biggest opponents to these deals are farmers. That should make you question their motives.
- vkou 10y ago
  > If you want to drive across the border to buy butter and bring it back, be prepared to answer a lot of questions to the CBSA, and possibly pay more tariffs, making it prohibitively expensive. My father does a lot of cross-border shopping at an American Costco (BC -> Washington). Among other groceries, he always buys butter, cheese, milk, and often brings back various second-hand/electronic goods shipped to a US PO box. Canadian border guards almost never ask him stupid questions - and I don't believe he's ever been interrogated about dairy products in particular. It might help that he: 1. Has his role in typical and atypical border-control conversations memorized. 2. Looks like a cave man who hasn't shaved in a decade.
drinchev 10y ago
Super interested, why the author has not included specific reason or requests coming from Wallonia on why they don't want the deal. I'm pretty sure these requests are based on non-corporate-political principle and that's why can't be fulfilled. EDIT : Only thing I found is specifically on the symbolic issue of arbitration, which is politically extremely important Sounds pretty vague to me.
- tormeh 10y ago
  That struck me as odd. I thought arbitration was the most important issue, not a symbolic one. Wasn't this trade deal (CETA) the back door for special-courts-for-American-multinationals?
  - pavpanchekha 10y ago
    Arbitration is a minor issue from a trade agreements point of view. The courts are not used that often, they usually side with states, and they're put in place mostly because neither country wants to give up its sovereignty to be at the mercy of the other country's courts. The natural solution is to make an a-national court to handle international disputes. Politically, the issue has become very polarized, because even allowing an international court to settle disputes is seen as giving up sovereignty. Of course, I would love it if everyone settled in the court of my choosing, but it doesn't work that way. People also get concerned that these courts lack democratic accountability. But of course all courts lack democratic accountability... I should add: here in the states, we worry that these courts are a backdoor for Canadian-conglomerate-friendly courts. They can't be simultaneously friendly to both the US and to Canada...
    - fmihaila 10y ago
      It's less about US vs. Canada (or country A vs. country B), and more about multinationals vs. citizens.
      - zeveb 10y ago
        Of course, part of the problem is that citizens (and, more importantly, the representatives those citizens elect) aren't always in the right, either. Remember in the decolonialisation period how many countries nationalised formerly-productive industries, to the great loss of both overseas investors (immediately) and to their own citizens (over time, as the nationalised industries became less and less productive).
TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
Good, neither side of the Atlantic needs another ISTS agreement.
Findeton 10y ago
This is great, and I really mean it. We europeans managed somehow to stop not only TTIP but also CETA. Congrats!
- walterbell 10y ago
  Let's see what happens to the TPP in the US during the Congressional lame-duck period (Nov-Dec 2016).
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  That's great, you managed to keep yourself the lowest growth area in the world, while the rest of the world is gaining wealth by leaps and bounds. Everyone else is opening up, Europe is hiding in the closet. Wallonian farmers will pay a much harder price in the long run when the Flemish dump them.
  - wott 10y ago
    Europe is already the most open market. The way proponents of such treaties try to sell them to us is that, thanks to them, European companies could go fuck other markets as easily as companies from other continents can already come and fuck our markets.
    - jomamaxx 10y ago
      Europe is not an open market for agriculture - and the Walloons are defending their agriculture here. Also, it's not as open a market as you would think. If it was there would be massive banking, energy and telecoms consolidation, and there hasn't been.
robert_foss 10y ago
The Investment protection and investor-state-tribunals[1] are rather unwelcome and as bad as the ones in the TTIP. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Economic_and_Trade_Agreement#Investment_protection_and_investor-state-tribunals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Economic_and_Tra...
- hencq 10y ago
  It's really unclear to me why TTIP and CETA have these. I can sort of see the logic for TPP, because many of the countries involved there don't have a reputation for having solid court systems. However, the US, Canada and the EU all have mature legal systems, so a corporation can already sue a country as is and get a fair trial.
  - jcranmer 10y ago
    It's definitely been opined that there's little benefit to having ISDS in TTIP/CETA. I suspect the main reason for keeping them in is symmetry--if you drop them TTIP and CETA, you'll see much stronger pressure to drop them from treaties where they make more sense (e.g., trade with, say, Pakistan), as people will argue that it wasn't necessary for TTIP so it shouldn't be necessary for other agreements.
  - jomamaxx 10y ago
    A corporation cannot sue a government for getting into a specific business normally. It's a tricky thing: company ABC invests $1B in some industry in some country - and then that country comes along and invests $2B in a national company so that national company can 'stay alive' ... and that money is used to undercut the foreign competitor. A lot of trade happens in traditionally protected sectors - so it's a hairy thing when foreign entities come along. Many countries - such as China - claim 'fair trade' (i.e. WTO) but specifically use all sorts of games to protect industries, just not obvious tactics like tariffs. This issue is almost at the hart of 'free trade' because it's all about opening traditionally protected sectors - and local actors often won't like that and will lobby their governments to 'save them' in roundabout ways. So it's a tricky thing. If anything, this shows that the EU is basically inept when it comes to trade deals. They will get nowhere with anyone because there will always be some little state the size of a city that doesn't like something. Imagine if all US states and major cities had to individually approve US trade deals!
omouse 10y ago
Sweet!
sssparkkk 10y ago
If I understand it correctly, CETA would have resulted in too much power for (big) Canadian corporations. So it's a good thing the trade agreement hasn't been ratified, correct?
- antientropic 10y ago
  If you oppose CETA, you may like this, but the manner in which CETA is defeated is bad news for the EU. It basically makes it impossible for the EU to conclude trade deals if every (sub)national parliament has veto power (I think there are about 35 of them now). At the same time, the power to make free trade agreements cannot be returned to the member states because they're in a common market / customs union. In US terms, this would be like giving a county in Wisconsin veto power over trade agreements made by the federal government.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

44 points by kukx 10y ago

ap3 10y ago

Read Wallonia and thought this was about some SeaLand clone - I checked the URL expecting it to be the Onion

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
tormeh 10y ago
It's complex... Belgium is divided into two major regions: Flandern and Wallonia. Flandern speaks Dutch and Wallonia speaks French. Initially, Wallonia didn't want to share its riches with the poor Flemish, wich meant a strong separation between them, but now it's the other way around. Basically, Belgium is two countries pretending to be one. It's one of many ways in which Belgium is messed up politically. Fun (sad) fact: Belgium has the most national politicians per capita in the world. Fun (sad) fact 2: Belgium holds the record for longest period without a government, with Iraq in second place. 589 days. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80%9311_Belgian_government_formation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80%9311_Belgian_govern...)
- icc97 10y ago
  Flanders [1] not Flandern. But you're quite right about the rest. Belgium is indeed a mess. I moved there from the UK 6 years ago expecting to find a country benefitting from a more open minded dual-language socialist life style. But instead its just nothing more than petty in-fighting. The Flemish speak better English than they do French. The two countries would love to split up but they both want Brussels which is in the Flemish half but mostly French speaking. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanders
- kwhitefoot 10y ago
  But Belgium survived quite well without a government because the civil service kept on working. It seems that governments aren't as important as they like to think; at least on a day to day basis.
  - tormeh 10y ago
    It's like not paying for software support and upgrades. The bugs won't be fixed, but newer ones won't be introduced either.

HorizonXP 10y ago

I'm not well-versed in these trade talks, but you know what really grinds my gears about Canada's current protectionism? Butter. No, really. In Canada, the dairy industry is run by a single co-op. That means that all milk and milk-based products must be sourced from the co-op (i.e. your provincial dairy bank). So all butter in Canada comes from the provincial supply. Want locally-sourced butter? It's nearly impossible to obtain, and even if you can, it's extremely expensive due to tariffs. Want butter that's completely grass-fed? It's possible, but also extremely expensive, and it comes from the provincial bank, so it's possibly mixed with other cows and/or milk. And all butter is 80% milk fat, which is abysmally low. European dairy is 85%, sometimes 90+%. Only very recently has it been possible to buy "New Zealand" grass-fed butter here, but it's $11 per 1/2 pound, likely due to import tariffs. And it goes through a local dairy, so I'm not 100% confident it's truly New Zealand milk. Nor can I confirm its fat percentage, so I could be just paying for a lot of water. If you want to drive across the border to buy butter and bring it back, be prepared to answer a lot of questions to the CBSA, and possibly pay more tariffs, making it prohibitively expensive. This applies to most other agricultural products too, like cheese, eggs, wheat, and more. Getting good cheese in Canada is expensive and hard. The fact that the article mentions that the CETA made strides in agricultural issues tells me that what I cited above is a possible issue in these trade negotiations. The same was true for TPP. I'll be really happy when these trade deals pass so I can get some real food at a decent price, and my local farmers can be given an opportunity to compete. Until then, the biggest opponents to these deals are farmers. That should make you question their motives.

vkou 10y ago
> If you want to drive across the border to buy butter and bring it back, be prepared to answer a lot of questions to the CBSA, and possibly pay more tariffs, making it prohibitively expensive. My father does a lot of cross-border shopping at an American Costco (BC -> Washington). Among other groceries, he always buys butter, cheese, milk, and often brings back various second-hand/electronic goods shipped to a US PO box. Canadian border guards almost never ask him stupid questions - and I don't believe he's ever been interrogated about dairy products in particular. It might help that he: 1. Has his role in typical and atypical border-control conversations memorized. 2. Looks like a cave man who hasn't shaved in a decade.

drinchev 10y ago

Super interested, why the author has not included specific reason or requests coming from Wallonia on why they don't want the deal. I'm pretty sure these requests are based on non-corporate-political principle and that's why can't be fulfilled. EDIT : Only thing I found is specifically on the symbolic issue of arbitration, which is politically extremely important Sounds pretty vague to me.

tormeh 10y ago
That struck me as odd. I thought arbitration was the most important issue, not a symbolic one. Wasn't this trade deal (CETA) the back door for special-courts-for-American-multinationals?
- pavpanchekha 10y ago
  Arbitration is a minor issue from a trade agreements point of view. The courts are not used that often, they usually side with states, and they're put in place mostly because neither country wants to give up its sovereignty to be at the mercy of the other country's courts. The natural solution is to make an a-national court to handle international disputes. Politically, the issue has become very polarized, because even allowing an international court to settle disputes is seen as giving up sovereignty. Of course, I would love it if everyone settled in the court of my choosing, but it doesn't work that way. People also get concerned that these courts lack democratic accountability. But of course all courts lack democratic accountability... I should add: here in the states, we worry that these courts are a backdoor for Canadian-conglomerate-friendly courts. They can't be simultaneously friendly to both the US and to Canada...
  - fmihaila 10y ago
    It's less about US vs. Canada (or country A vs. country B), and more about multinationals vs. citizens.
    - zeveb 10y ago
      Of course, part of the problem is that citizens (and, more importantly, the representatives those citizens elect) aren't always in the right, either. Remember in the decolonialisation period how many countries nationalised formerly-productive industries, to the great loss of both overseas investors (immediately) and to their own citizens (over time, as the nationalised industries became less and less productive).

TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago

Good, neither side of the Atlantic needs another ISTS agreement.

Findeton 10y ago

This is great, and I really mean it. We europeans managed somehow to stop not only TTIP but also CETA. Congrats!

walterbell 10y ago
Let's see what happens to the TPP in the US during the Congressional lame-duck period (Nov-Dec 2016).
jomamaxx 10y ago
That's great, you managed to keep yourself the lowest growth area in the world, while the rest of the world is gaining wealth by leaps and bounds. Everyone else is opening up, Europe is hiding in the closet. Wallonian farmers will pay a much harder price in the long run when the Flemish dump them.
- wott 10y ago
  Europe is already the most open market. The way proponents of such treaties try to sell them to us is that, thanks to them, European companies could go fuck other markets as easily as companies from other continents can already come and fuck our markets.
  - jomamaxx 10y ago
    Europe is not an open market for agriculture - and the Walloons are defending their agriculture here. Also, it's not as open a market as you would think. If it was there would be massive banking, energy and telecoms consolidation, and there hasn't been.

robert_foss 10y ago

The Investment protection and investor-state-tribunals[1] are rather unwelcome and as bad as the ones in the TTIP. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Economic_and_Trade_Agreement#Investment_protection_and_investor-state-tribunals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Economic_and_Tra...

hencq 10y ago
It's really unclear to me why TTIP and CETA have these. I can sort of see the logic for TPP, because many of the countries involved there don't have a reputation for having solid court systems. However, the US, Canada and the EU all have mature legal systems, so a corporation can already sue a country as is and get a fair trial.
- jcranmer 10y ago
  It's definitely been opined that there's little benefit to having ISDS in TTIP/CETA. I suspect the main reason for keeping them in is symmetry--if you drop them TTIP and CETA, you'll see much stronger pressure to drop them from treaties where they make more sense (e.g., trade with, say, Pakistan), as people will argue that it wasn't necessary for TTIP so it shouldn't be necessary for other agreements.
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  A corporation cannot sue a government for getting into a specific business normally. It's a tricky thing: company ABC invests $1B in some industry in some country - and then that country comes along and invests $2B in a national company so that national company can 'stay alive' ... and that money is used to undercut the foreign competitor. A lot of trade happens in traditionally protected sectors - so it's a hairy thing when foreign entities come along. Many countries - such as China - claim 'fair trade' (i.e. WTO) but specifically use all sorts of games to protect industries, just not obvious tactics like tariffs. This issue is almost at the hart of 'free trade' because it's all about opening traditionally protected sectors - and local actors often won't like that and will lobby their governments to 'save them' in roundabout ways. So it's a tricky thing. If anything, this shows that the EU is basically inept when it comes to trade deals. They will get nowhere with anyone because there will always be some little state the size of a city that doesn't like something. Imagine if all US states and major cities had to individually approve US trade deals!

omouse 10y ago

Sweet!

sssparkkk 10y ago

If I understand it correctly, CETA would have resulted in too much power for (big) Canadian corporations. So it's a good thing the trade agreement hasn't been ratified, correct?

antientropic 10y ago
If you oppose CETA, you may like this, but the manner in which CETA is defeated is bad news for the EU. It basically makes it impossible for the EU to conclude trade deals if every (sub)national parliament has veto power (I think there are about 35 of them now). At the same time, the power to make free trade agreements cannot be returned to the member states because they're in a common market / customs union. In US terms, this would be like giving a county in Wisconsin veto power over trade agreements made by the federal government.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]