MOSCOW (Sputnik) — If the European Union decided to renegotiate the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which was blocked by Belgium's Wallonia regional parliament, it would set a bad precedent for the EU trade policy and would serve as a sign of the European Union's unpredictability, BusinessEurope federation of EU enterprises' director of international relations Luisa Santos told Sputnik on Tuesday.
"In principle, the agreement is already concluded and negotiations cannot be reopened…. It is worrying, from the viewpoint of the respect of the rule of law, that it is suggested that a concluded agreement can be renegotiated to appease one region within the EU…. This would be a bad precedent for the EU trade policy and would extremely concern all our negotiating partners," Santos warned.
On Thursday, the 28-nation bloc and Ottawa were expected to sign CETA at the joint EU-Canada Summit. However, on Tuesday, European Parliament President Martin Schulz said there was little chance that CETA would be signed as its ratification stumbled in Belgium.
CETA aims to establish a free trade zone between Canada and the European Union, scrapping more than 98 percent of the existing tariffs between Ottawa and Brussels. Opponents fear it would undermine standards and regulations on environmental protection, health, safety and workers' rights.
