[LINK] "EU, Canada to Hail Draft Trade Pact That May Take Effect in 2016 "

[rfmcdonald]

Yay!. From Bloomberg:

The European Union and Canada are poised to celebrate the end of five years of negotiations on a free-trade accord when both sides hold a summit later this week.

The draft agreement, the EU’s most ambitious commercial pact to date, will then go through about nine months of legal checks before being put to the bloc’s 28 national governments and the European Parliament for final approval. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will host the EU-Canada meeting on Sept. 26 in Ottawa.

The deal, projected to take effect in 2016, would end 98 percent of tariffs on EU-Canada goods trade from the outset and 99 percent after seven years. Each side would dismantle all industrial tariffs and more than 90 percent of agricultural duties. Markets for services and public procurement would also be opened under the pact, the EU’s first with a fellow member of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations.

This “is a new generation agreement that will create more opportunities for our businesses, who will receive the same treatment on both sides of the Atlantic, and generate more job opportunities,” Jose Barroso, president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said in a statement today in Brussels. “This is no small achievement between two G-7 members.”

The EU is seeking to build on the draft trade agreement with Canada to push for a bigger market-opening pact with the U.S., a step that would expand what is already the world’s largest economic relationship. By contrast, Canada is the EU’s 12th most-important trade partner.