Cerame-Unie is following the progress of CETA and other FTAs. The vote on CETA in the European Parliament has been postponed to February, which will be the last month for the EU to notify Canada of its will to apply the agreement provisionally. If the Parliament accepts the agreement, the provisional application of this trade deal will be then expected for 1 March 2017. Following the USA presidential elections, the negotiations will be on hold ‘for quite some time’, according to the Trade Commissioner Malmström. Cerame-Unie is monitoring closely the intention of the USA and the administration of the President-elect concerning this trade agreement.
Regarding Mercosur the first round of negotiations was held from 10 to 14 October. The negotiations were merely introductory and the Commission also thanked all the stakeholders for the inputs stemming from the public consultation of October, in which Cerame-Unie took part.
Based on the input of our members, Cerame-Unie prepared and submitted the questionnaire on the Indonesia FTAs consultation on Monday 5 December. This consultation was launched by the Commission in November and was aiming at assessing the potential benefits of an FTA between the EU and Indonesia. A new consultation is being assessed by Cerame-Unie on the negotiation for a revision of the EU-Mexico FTA. The second round of negotiation was held on 22 – 25 November. The consultation aim at assessing the impact of this agreement on stakeholder, the deadline is on 25 January. To view all ongoing negotiations please follow this link.Cerame-Unie signed a joint letter statement with a wide range of European industry and service sectors, in view of the progress of the EU-Japan FTA negotiations. The concerned industries called on both parties to move forward the negotiations in a constructive manner and make all efforts necessary to swiftly conclude an ambitious and inclusive EU-Japan FTA.
On 11 November Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström signed the Protocol of Accession of Ecuador to the EU’s Trade Agreement with Colombia and Peru. On 14 December the European Parliament gave its consent for the provisional application of the trade agreement, therefore provisionally applicable since 1 January 2017. For further information on EU- Ecuador FTA please follow this link.