THE timing looked suspicious when Stephen Harper, Canada’s prime minister, flew to Brussels on October 17th to announce, alongside the head of the European Commission, that a long-awaited trade deal between Canada and the EU had been struck in principle. Less than 24 hours earlier Mr Harper had unveiled his government’s plans for the coming year, and he had been expected to stick around to defend them. Meanwhile, a long-rumbling scandal over expenses-fiddling by senators had come to a head over the summer, and opposition parties were looking forward to grilling the prime minister now that parliament had finally resumed.The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the EU is certainly being born in difficult political circumstances for Canada’s ruling Conservatives. Yet there is evidence to support Mr Harper’s claim that, once finalised, it will be “the biggest deal our country has ever made”.Canada has forged trade or investment pacts in the past with more important or populous trading partners than the EU. In 1987 it cut the first of various deals with the United States, with whom it does most of its trade. Last year it signed a foreign-investment protection agreement with China, more than twice as populous as Europe. But no previous deal rivals the broad sweep of CETA, which not only addresses conventional customs barriers—eliminating 99% of...
via The Economist: The Americas http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21588418-landmark-agreement-could-show-way-future-deals-atlantic-accord?fsrc=rss|ame
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