EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA)
CETA is a trade agreement between the EU and Canada which removes tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade between the UK and Canada.
CETA is the most extensive EU free trade agreement to date. It benefits UK companies by immediately removing 98% of the duties they have to pay at Canadian customs.
The benefits for UK companies are:
- elimination of nearly all Canadian import duties
- increased opportunities for UK companies to bid for public contracts in Canada
- strengthening of UK firms’ ability to access Canadian services and investment markets
- improvement of the framework for temporary movement of company personnel and service providers between the EU and Canada
- strengthening of the Canadian intellectual property environment
- strengthening of the cooperation between European and Canadian standard setting bodies
CETA: legislation
The majority of the agreement and its removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers came into effect with provisional application on 21 September 2017. The remainder comes into effect with the completion of ratification in each EU member state.
The government has started the formal process for UK ratification of CETA. This includes:
- laying the draft Statutory Instrument (SI) The European Union (Definition of Treaties) (Canada Trade Agreement) Order 2018 before Parliament
- sending the Impact assessment of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the European Union and Canada to Parliament
- the debates and votes, which were in favour, in the House of Commons and the House of Lords on 26 June and 25 June 2018
The Regulatory Policy Committee (RPC) carried out an independent review of the CETA impact assessment. The RPC is an advisory non-departmental public body, which provides the government with external, independent scrutiny of new regulatory and deregulatory proposals.
CETA: research
The CETA impact assessment references the 2018 study ‘Impact of the EU-Canada Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement on the UK’. The 2010 report ‘The implications of an EU-Canada FTA for the UK’ was referred to before this was available so has been published for transparency.