Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 23 June 2021
45. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if the provision of state aid by Ireland to locally based cultural industries and artists is permissible under the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the European Union. [33624/21]
View answerThe EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, commonly known as CETA, has provisionally applied since 21st September 2017, meaning a great many of the benefits of this Agreement are already in place. Provisional application is a standard mechanism provided for in the EU’s Free Trade Agreements. This means that those areas where the EU has full competence may be applied immediately once the Agreement has been voted for by Council and the European Parliament. It is an important mechanism that allows consumers and companies to benefit from a trade agreement at an early stage, as the completion of national ratification procedures across all 27 Member States can take several years.
The positive impact of the provisional application of the Agreement has been plain to see with goods exports to Canada increased from EUR 953 million in 2016 to more than EUR 1.7 billion in 2020, an increase of 78 per cent, while services exports grew from EUR 1.6 billion in 2016 to more than EUR 2.3 billion in 2019, an increase of 44 per cent.
Looking further at the tangible benefits of this Agreement, my Department has recently released the results of an independent study of the potential economic opportunities and impacts for Ireland from the European Union’s Free Trade Agreements with Canada as well as South Korea, Mexico and Japan. The study, released on 28 April, encompasses state of the art quantitative modelling and qualitative analysis, including a comprehensive programme of stakeholder engagement with business and agriculture representatives and found that these four EU FTAs are forecast to have a positive effect on trade, GDP and national income in Ireland.
The full coming into force of the Agreement once ratified across all Member States, will see the implementation of the Investment Chapter of the Agreement including the resolution of disputes between investors and states, should they arise. All international trade agreements have dispute resolution arrangements. Where such agreements cover (i) trade in both goods and services and (ii) investment rules and protections, then there must be a dispute resolution mechanism that covers investments. The EU’s new approach to investment protection is the Investment Court System (ICS) which is contained in CETA and replaces the old Investor-State Dispute Settlement or ISDS mechanism. I have set out for the House, on many occasions previously, the improvements ICS represents over the older ISDS.
It is also important to point out that CETA reaffirms the EU and Canada’s right to regulate to achieve legitimate policy objectives, such as the protection of public health, the environment or consumer protection. And while CETA does not prevent a party pursuing a claim through domestic courts, the ICS element of CETA is specifically designed to provide an arbitration alternative to either EU investors in Canada or Canadian investors in the EU.
In relation to the "locally-based cultural industries and artists" highlighted by the Deputy, Canada and the EU are both signatories of the UNESCO Convention of Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions and this is explicitly "affirmed" in CETA, including the "right to preserve, develop and implement their cultural policies, to support their cultural industries for the purpose of strengthening the diversity of cultural expressions and to preserve their cultural identity, including through the use of regulatory measures and financial support". Importantly, Article 7.7 of CETA explicitly provides that: "Noting in this Agreement applies to subsidies or government support with respect to audio-visual services for the European Union and to cultural industries for Canada." In this context, my Department sees no issues arising under the terms of CETA that would impact Ireland's entitlement to support locally-based cultural industries and artists.
