The French Senate voted against ratification of the text, five years after the green light was given to the National Assembly. Nine other EU states have still not ratified this agreement, although it has already been implemented in almost its entirety.
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And now ? The Senate voted against the ratification of Ceta, an agreement free trade between the European Union and Canada, Thursday March 21. A convenient left-right alliance allowed the rejection of the text, which could therefore come back before the National Assembly, even though it had adopted it in 2019, narrowly. France is one of ten countries which have never given the official green light to this transatlantic treaty with contested content.
Ceta is a so-called “mixed” agreement, because it combines areas falling within both European and national competences. In reality, 90% of the provisions of the text have already been provisionally applied since the vote of the European Parliament in February 2017. This is, among other things, the case of the trade measures of the treaty, such as customs tariffs, which fall under the exclusive competence of the European Union. Ceta removes customs duties on 98% of products traded between the EU and Canada.
In total, 43 parliaments to convince
But other provisions fall under powers shared between the EU and the States, such as those concerning investments or the creation of an arbitration tribunal for disputes between States and companies. This is why we must obtain the agreement of each of the 43 national and regional parliaments of the EU to enforce the entirety of Ceta. Since there is a lot of reluctance, this process takes time, a lot of time.
In January 2023, Germany became the 17th EU member state to say yes to Ceta, and remains the latest. Ten countries are dragging their feet today: Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland and Slovenia. And this, despite repeated booster shots. In January, the European Parliament again adopted a resolution encouraging them to ratify the agreement as quickly as possible.
In France, the file arrived at the Luxembourg Palace four years after the ratification of the text by the National Assembly, thanks to a political coup by the communist group. The Senate’s negative vote does not, however, amount to a definitive rejection of Ceta by France, since the text is supposed to return to the deputies for a new examination – perilous, of course, because the presidential camp no longer has the majority as in 2019. As soon as the result was known in the Senate on Thursday, the communist deputies announced their intention to include the ratification of Ceta on the agenda of the Assembly on May 30, during their parliamentary niche.
What would happen if Ceta was rejected by MPs? “Declaration 20 of the Council of the EU provides for the denunciation of the provisional application of Ceta if ratification fails for a Member State”recalls on franceinfo Alan Hervé, professor of public law at Sciences Po Rennes. “The confirmation by the National Assembly of the rejection of Ceta will make it possible to put an end to its application”assert the communist deputies in their press release on Thursday. “But the French government would have to officially notify it to Brussels”, warns the academic. Which he doesn’t have to do.
Many reluctant states
Thus, in the summer of 2020, the Cypriot Parliament rejected the ratification of Ceta without Nicosia providing any formal notification. The agreement therefore continues to apply provisionally in Cyprus and elsewhere. If Paris decided to notify this failure, the consequences would be immediate: the provisional application of Ceta would then be suspended in all member states. But this in no way appears to be the executive’s intention.
In many other refractory countries, the situation seems blocked, or somewhat forgotten. Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia party, in power in Italy, is opposed to Ceta. The Slovenian government, according to the local press, wants the country’s Constitutional Court to first give its opinion on the text. And in Ireland, the Irish Supreme Court ruled, in November 2022, that the country could not ratify the treaty without first amending the existing arbitration law. As early as 2016, Wallonia had blocked ratification for Belgium, crystallizing the fight of the “anti” at the European level.