Thomas P. Broughan
Question:276. Deputy Thomas P. Broughan asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the implications here of the recently concluded Canada-European Union Free Trade Agreement. [49239/13]
View answerTuesday, 19 November 2013
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The political agreement reached on the key elements of a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada was announced on 18 October 2013 by EU Commission President Barroso and Canadian Prime Minister Harper. There will now be further technical discussions based on this political agreement, which are necessary to finalise the legal text of the agreement.
The CETA covers virtually every aspect of economic activity, and is an extremely important one for Ireland. It is the first comprehensive trade agreement with an historically close trade and economic partner and is a landmark deal between our two transatlantic economies. The CETA will see the elimination of all industrial tariffs and almost all agricultural tariffs. The sensitivities for Ireland in the beef sector are addressed by only partial liberalisation through tariff rate quotas. As to the dairy sector, substantial concessions have been granted by Canada on infant formula, milk protein concentrate and cheese. There is complete liberalisation of tariffs on milk protein concentrate and infant formula plus additional new cheese quotas for the EU in excess of 17,000 tonnes.
The CETA will also widely liberalise trade in services, among others in the areas of financial services, telecommunications, energy and transport. For the first time ever, all Canadian levels of government will open up their public procurement markets above certain thresholds to European suppliers.
The opportunities presented by the Agreement could add over €200 million to Ireland’s current €2.7 billion bilateral trade with Canada, thus creating more jobs and contributing to our economic recovery.