[LINK] "Is Canada-EU trade getting bogged down?"

[rfmcdonald]

Paul Wells of MacLean's writes about the Canada-European Union trade deal and its issues.

Here’s a surprise from the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita (I read ’em all): An interview with Steve Verheul, Canada’s lead negotiator for the Canada-EU trade treaty known as CETA. There were many signing ceremonies for this treaty over the last months of Stephen Harper’s tenure as prime minister, but there’s been less news about the treaty’s fate since all the pomp and circumstance faded.

Verheul’s interview suggests not everything is hunky-dory. At issue, as anyone could have predicted (and Maclean’s did 10 months ago), is the so-called “investor-state dispute settlement” (ISDS) provisions in the trade deal. Here’s a random blog post from the nationalist Council of Canadians on ISDS provisions. Such concerns have been raised in mirror fashion by any number of trade-skeptical NGOs in Europe.