on Sunday 30 October, the canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau will come to Brussels to sign CETA, an important trade agreement between Canada and the European Union, which until a few days ago, was blocked by the parliament of Wallonia, one of the three regions in which is divided the Belgium. The CETA, which was negotiated in the course of the last 7 years, will eliminate 98 percent of the customs barriers between the European Union and Canada and will allow eu exporters to save up to € 500 million per year. The opposition of the Walloon region was overcome thanks to a clause added in the last days, that the protection even further, some manufacturers in the belgian region. CETA means "Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement", which in Italian was translated as "the comprehensive and economic trade Agreement". Of the possibility of an agreement between Europe and Canada had spoken for the first time at a conference in Ottawa in march 2004. The negotiations began five years later, in may of 2009 and lasted for the next five years. In 2014 the agreement was concluded and started the long process of approval on the part of the individual european countries. In practice, the CETA is a long document, 1598 pages [PDF], which contains hundreds of articles. One of its main effects will be the elimination of most tariffs between the European Union and Canada, but the treaty also contains many other provisions. For example, it allows european companies to participate in tenders for public contracts in Canada and vice versa. You are to provide for the mutual recognition of professional qualifications and new rules to protect copyright and industrial patents. The agreement also provides for the protection of the trade mark of some agricultural and food products typical, a clause strongly demanded by european farmers, as it was one of the most long and difficult negotiation). A very controversial treaty has concerned the ISDS, the Investor-state dispute settlement", or, in Italian, the clauses for the Resolution of disputes between the investor and the state." These are some of the clauses that allow you to sue a state before an international arbitration in the case in which an investor believes he has been unjustly damaged. The basic idea of ISDS is that the state courts are not always the best place to protect the interests of a foreign company. It is thought, therefore, that we can create a climate more attractive to investment by allowing foreign companies access to an "international tribunal" to protect himself from any decisions unfair on the part of the foreign state where they operate. To resolve these disputes, the CETA establishes the creation of a court of permanent judges chosen from Canada and the European Union, among which will be raffled to those who will take care of individual cases. The ISDS, a clause common in many commercial treaties being discussed or under discussion in these years, are often criticized by NGOS and civil society, in particular in Europe. According to the critics, it is wrong to give the possibility to private companies to sue states. Today, Italy is involved in six proceedings in which foreign companies have invoked international arbitration. At the same time, Italian companies are engaged in 30 lawsuits of the same type against other countries. In Wallonia, the opposition to the treaty was led by Paul Magnette, the leader of the socialist party and of the government of Wallonia. Magnette, initially, motivated by its opposition with the presence of the ISDS in the text of the agreement, and claimed that he and the socialist party in the walloon are among the few european politicians to be, were idealists and defend the interests of the continent without succumbing to the interests of multinational corporations. Magnette at the end he changed his mind when he received the promise that the validity of the ISDS shall be verified by the Court of justice of the european union, and when the treaty have been added more clauses to protect agricultural producers from the belgians.
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