Cheese: The Final Frontier For The Completion Of The Canada-EU Trade Deal CETA

from the blessed-are-the-cheesemakers dept

Wed, Jun 21st 2017 6:31pm — Glyn Moody

Remember CETA, the "Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement" between the EU and Canada? After years of on-off moments, including one last burst of uncertainty in March of this year, it finally seemed that everything had been settled, and that the deal would soon come into force. But it turns out that there is another, hitherto-unsuspected problem -- cheese:

Canada's CBC reported on its website that plans to have CETA (the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement) in place on 1 July were "threatened by a new cheese dispute". It said Europeans were upset at how Canada would allocate import quotas for new EU products, including 18,000 additional tonnes of cheese that Canada has agreed to import tariff-free.

Euractiv has all the details of the problem, which turns out to be bickering over how EU cheese producers will share that new tariff-free allowance. That's just last-minute haggling, and presumably will be solved with some appropriate sticks and carrots on both sides of the Atlantic. But an earlier report on the same site indicates there are deeper issues with CETA that remain unresolved:

In France, 110 MPs have demanded the opinion of the Constitutional Council on the legality of CETA. A ruling is due this summer. And Belgium, whose calls for additional guarantees had led to a confrontation with Brussels, has promised to take its concerns to the Court of Justice of the European Union in the coming weeks.

Most recently, it is France's new President Emmanuel Macron who has put the issue back on the negotiating table, promising in the last days of his presidential campaign to set up an expert committee to examine the CETA agreement before ratification.

The last one of these is particularly problematic. Macron has adopted a surprisingly muscular style in his first few days as French President, most famously in his handshake with Donald Trump, and won't want to be seen backing down from his promise to seek expert scrutiny of CETA before ratification. Looks like there's life in that cheesy CETA saga yet.

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Filed Under: canada, ceta, cheese, eu, trade agreements

13 Comments

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Pixelation, 21 Jun 2017 @ 7:22pm

Dare I say it?
Will they have to cut the cheese?
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stderric (profile), 21 Jun 2017 @ 7:56pm

If you look at the big picture, though, the phrase "additional tonnes of cheese" is found in far more peace treaties than declarations of war.
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Anonymous Canadian, 21 Jun 2017 @ 7:56pm

dont want eu cheese
after what i heard about france one time something about recycled baby diaper material being found in some food product i do not think i want there cheese,

wine and possibly some items i have to now buy from americans but not food
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- PaulT (profile), 22 Jun 2017 @ 12:28am
  
  Re: dont want eu cheese
  So, you avoid an entire country's produce because of this one bad thing you heard one time being found in it?
  
  You should probably never Google about foreign objects found in Canadian food, you'll never eat again.
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- Anonymous Coward, 22 Jun 2017 @ 2:25am
  
  Re: dont want eu cheese
  The way french wine have been produced traditionally would also include skin material from feet.
  
  Then again, a local Burger King was fined for having pee from an upstair uncleaned toilet drip into the food in the kitchen.
  
  Sometimes it is just better not to know what is going on.
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  - PaulT (profile), 22 Jun 2017 @ 5:20am
    
    Re: Re: dont want eu cheese
    Case in point - the US FDA have published guidelines on how many insect fragments and larvae are acceptable in food before they're classed as contaminated.
    
    Spoiler: the number isn't zero.
    
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Food_Defect_Action_Levels
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    - Anonymous Coward, 22 Jun 2017 @ 6:08am
      
      Re: Re: Re: dont want eu cheese
      Speaking as a former Fish Monger. If you eat seafood, you dont really want to know how many parasites naturally occur in marine animals. It's all protein in the end really.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Jun 2017 @ 1:08am

Did they include AG naming bill?
If they did and the political situation is anything like America's then it will die a horrible death over utterly non-viable name exclusivity.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Jun 2017 @ 4:46am

FDA?
Doesn't the FDA pretty much outlaw most foreign cheeze since it may not be pasturized? Or not pasturized to american standards? So a lot of fluff and bother over something that most likely isn't going to happen. No cheese for you. No cheddar for me.
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- PaulT (profile), 22 Jun 2017 @ 5:15am
  
  Re: FDA?
  What do the FDA and American standards have to do with a deal between Canada and the EU?
  
  How the hell do you misspell cheese?
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  - Aaron Walkhouse (profile), 22 Jun 2017 @ 6:25pm
    
    With a "Z"
    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=cheeze&title=Special:Search&fulltext=1&searc hToken=347rzefq0oh30sn00sqz78ogl
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Jun 2017 @ 7:45am

The various Canadian dairy lobbyists and advocacy groups are basically thugs. In most provinces, regardless of what brand milk you buy, you'll always find the same logo somewhere on the bottle/carton/bag. Sometimes it's a little blue cow, sometimes it says COR, sometimes it's a mention of a huge conglomerate. It doesn't matter though, there's only about two or three dairy producers in Canada.

Any they hate competition. They petition for enormous and bizarre tariffs on imports with really weird clauses attached. Did you know you get taxed on mozzarella imports from US to Canada UNLESS you also import meat at the same time and say you're a pizzeria. It's that kind of crap that's commonplace in the Canadian dairy market.

Honestly, Canadian dairy companies run the same tactics as American ISPs.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Jun 2017 @ 10:21am

Funny....
After the negotiations were over and they got everyone together for a group photo they were told to say "CHEESE"!!!

Ha ha ha ha....
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