|
Canada-EU trade pact lacks detail Harper touts free trade agreement with European Union; many observers find deal overstated; ratification by EU countries needed Gary Park For Petroleum News
Not given to superlatives or press conferences of any sort, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper far exceeded himself in announcing that Canada had achieved its coveted free trade agreement with the European Union.
“This is a big deal,” he said as he stood beside Jose Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, in Brussels. “Indeed it is the biggest deal our country has ever made.”
That means, in Harper’s view, it tops the 1988 free-trade pact with the United States that was closely followed by the North American Free Trade Agreement that included Mexico in a three-way partnership.
To many observers, Harper has overstated the EU deal, given that the two sides have so far released only a 44-page document that is thin on detail and has still to be ratified by the 28 EU countries — three of which have warned they won’t sign unless Canada drops its visa requirement for their citizens.
The most optimistic forecasts say Canada will have to wait at least 18 to 24 months before it can gain unrestricted trade access to the 500 million residents of the EU.
Although Harper avoided making any comment, many observers suggested that his major triumph may have been getting a deal in place with the EU before the United States.
Free-trade deals are notoriously complex and getting their approval by industry lobby groups is an arduous process at the best of times, thus the uneasiness among trade experts.
Oil sands an issue Above all, there is a powerful faction within the EU that wants nothing to do with opening markets to Canada’s crude oil, especially if it comes from the Alberta oil sands.
Marie-Anne Coninsx, the EU’s newly installed Ambassador to Canada, insisted that the “comprehensive” agreement will be ratified because it has the backing of all 10 Canadian provinces and will achieve Canada’s objective of diversifying its trade.
She downplayed concerns that a proposed EU fuel quality directive, which would discriminate against the oil sands, arguing the directive is still a work in progress.
But the Alberta government remains on edge and has sent two senior cabinet ministers to Europe to dissuade EU members from endorsing the directive by convincing them that there is no truth to estimates that bitumen from the oil sands emits 22 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional crude.
Milos Barutciski, co-chairman of the international trade and investment group at the law firm of Bennett Jones, said the EU stands to benefit in the energy sector when barriers to investment are removed or lowered.
Coninsx said there is a lot of “misperception” about the directive, which she insisted will not “penalize anybody or any country.”
She stressed that the directive is based on “scientific effects and data.”
GHG could be a problem That alone could pose a problem for Canada, given a new report from Environment Canada that the country’s GHGs will total 734 megatonnes (about 14 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent) in 2020 — 122 megatonnes higher than Canada’s assigned target in the 2009 Copenhagen Accord.
However, the government report said there has been “significant progress,” estimating GHGs would have risen to 862 megatonnes if no action had been taken by consumers, businesses and governments since 2005.
The report also forecast that emissions are projected to drop in areas such as tailpipe emissions from road vehicles and from coal-fired power plants.
But the oil sands, the fastest growing source of carbon pollution in Canada, are forecast to rise to 101 million metric tons in 2020 from 34 million metric tons in 2005, surpassing the total GHG output in provinces such as Quebec, British Columbia and Saskatchewan.
| 