excerpted from Ottawa Citizen, August 31, 2011 EU snubbed free-trade offer from Canada By Jordan Press, Postmedia
The European Union had no interest in negotiating a freetrade agreement with Canada nine years ago, despite heavy lobbying from the federal government, according to a newly leaked diplomatic cable.
That cable from the U.S. embassy in Ottawa and posted on the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, says the EU did not see any sound economic argument for the two parties to enter into a freetrade agreement.
“The European Commission did not see an economic/commercial case for a full-fledged FTA, and did not want to risk detracting from multilateral negotiations,” then U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci wrote in the leaked cable.
“There was some difference of opinion regarding the value of a FTA among EU member states . The EU Trade Policy Body, however, remained unified in their position against a FTA.”
Instead, the government and EU decided on a trade agreement a step below free trade, which was put on permanent hiatus in 2006.
Now, eight years after the EU’s initial trepidation, officials from Europe and the federal government are on the verge of hammering out the last remaining details of a free-trade agreement.
The difference in eight years?
In 2003, the EU was in the midst of incorporating eastern European states into its organization and working on smaller trade agreements, said former diplomat Colin Robertson, a fellow at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa.
“At that point, we’re just not on their scope,” he said.
Now, he said, the EU and other governments around the world are seeing Canada as a valuable trading partner because of its abundance of natural resources.