EU Policy

The European Union and Canada last week unveiled plans for an ambitious new partnership that could eventually give Canada a form of associate EU membership. Yet their existing landmark agreement remains unfinished business.

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The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) was signed in 2016 and has applied provisionally since 2017, removing almost all tariffs and helping drive a sharp increase in transatlantic trade. But ten EU countries – Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland and Slovenia – have still not ratified it.

The contrast was underlined last week when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen invited Canada to deepen its economic and security ties with the bloc.

“We will move from CETA to an Alliance for the Future to create a common prosperity and economic security space,” von der Leyen told MEPs and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Strasbourg.

Despite not being fully ratified, the deal provisionally entered into force in 2017.

But what is CETA and why is its ratification blocked?

What is in the EU-Canada trade agreement?

CETA was concluded in 2016 after seven years of negotiations and often heated debate across EU member states.

The agreement removed tariffs on 98% of goods traded between the EU and Canada, covering products ranging from wine and cars to chemicals. It also opened up more of the Canadian market to European companies in sectors including financial services, telecommunications and transport.

The Commission says the agreement boosted EU-Canada bilateral trade in goods and services by 80% in 2025 compared to 2016, when CETA was signed, reaching €130 billion, up from €72.1 billion recorded nine years before. The EU has a trade surplus of €16 billion in goods and €9,7 billion in services.

For agricultural products, it allows 143 European products with the status of geographical indications (GIs) to be sold in Canada, protecting them from imitation. The deal also includes quotas for EU cheese exported to Canada (32,000 tonnes per year), Canadian beef (50,000 tonnes) and pork (80,000 tonnes) to the EU. It also bans imports of Canadian products containing prohibited substances, such as growth hormones.

Only 3% of the beef quotas were filled between 2021 and 2023, due to the EU’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) rules, which make it costly for Canadian beef producers to export, according to a Commission assessment.

Why is the ratification blocked?

Concerns over food safety and environmental standards are among the reasons CETA has faced resistance in EU countries. European farmers have also raised concerns about unfair competition from Canadian products, arguing that some of Canada’s production rules are less stringent than those in the EU.

CETA opponents also criticised the deal’s Investor-State Dispute Settlement provisions. Those let companies bring a claim against the state before an arbitration tribunal if its government adopts a law that discriminates against a company and harms its profits. The tribunals were ad hoc, composed of private arbitrators.

However, controversies around a system that might favour business lobbies led the Commission to include safeguards and replace the Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanism with an Investment Court System with permanent judges and an appeal mechanism. The EU and Canada have also introduced provisions to safeguard their right to regulate policies aiming to protect public health and safety, the environment or social protection. But opponents say that the safeguards won’t be enough to protect such policies. It is planned that the courts will only come into force once the deal is ratified by all 27 member states.

When will the EU fully ratify the deal?

There is no clear timetable, not least because the ratification process is effectively blocked in several member states.

For instance, in France, the Senate rejected the deal in 2024, and the government then blocked its submission to the National Assembly, fearing a full rejection.

In Poland, the ratification process is also frozen, as well as in Italy, where it has been blocked since the government rejected it in 2018, considering Italian GIs were not given enough protection. Italian MEP Carlo Fidanza, from the Brothers of Italy party, recently said that there were few chances the deal would be submitted to parliament before the December 2027 elections.

Published on
17/09/2026 – 17:24 GMT+2

The European Commission stepped up pressure on China on Thursday, calling for tangible results with Beijing following a one-hour video call between Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič and his Chinese counterpart, Wang Wentao.

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The EU executive hopes to secure commitments from Beijing to rebalance the trade relationship, as the bloc’s trade deficit with China has been widening by €1 billion a day.

However, Beijing wants to secure access to the EU’s market of 450 million consumers, resisting calls from the Europeans to reduce its exports.

“While genuine engagement remains a priority, it is equally important that first concrete outcomes are delivered at the second session of the Trade and Investment Council in Beijing in October, which the Commissioner will co-chair – a signal that we are moving from rhetoric to results,” the Commission said in a statement after the call.

“That outcome needs to be credible,” the statement added.

The EU-China Trade and Investment Council was launched in June as a dialogue between the two sides, with the Commission setting October as a deadline to reach tangible results.

During the call on Thursday, Šefčovič and Wentao discussed market access on both sides and Chinese export controls on rare earths.

China has a near-monopoly over the production and processing of these strategic materials, which are essential to the EU’s green technology, defence and automotive industries, giving Beijing significant leverage in the negotiations.

The EU is seeking assurances that China will not halt its exports of rare earths again, a year after blocking them amid a trade war with the US. Securing the necessary export licences is essential for EU businesses.

EU leaders expect results

The coming weeks will be crucial for the negotiations, with EU officials expected to make another trip to China for technical discussions before Šefčovič himself travels to Beijing on 8–9 October.

In her State of the Union address to MEPs on Wednesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also pushed for concrete results in the EU-China talks.

“Words are good. But deeds are better,” she said, making clear that the EU was ready to use all its trade defence instruments to rebalance the trade relationship.

China is also expected to feature prominently on the agenda when EU leaders meet in October. They have tasked the Commission with securing tangible results from its dialogue with Beijing.

In an interview with Euronews, Šefčovič also made clear that, without a “deliverable” to present to EU leaders,“the political interest would be to look for the solution through other instruments.”

The EU has several trade defence instruments such as anti-dumping duties or tariffs against unfair subsidies.

A diversification tool is also in the pipeline, aimed at reducing EU firms’ reliance on Chinese critical minerals for strategic technologies by helping them diversify their sources of supply.

Such a move would come as relations between Beijing and Brussels remain strained, following the Commission’s introduction of several legislative proposals aimed at protecting the EU market. One of them would introduce a European preference for products made in Europe, prompting China to threaten retaliatory measures.

Last summer, China also urged its companies to stop cooperating with the Commission in antitrust investigations, after the EU executive opened a probe in May into e-commerce giant JD.com over concerns about subsidies.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on Wednesday that Canada has been invited to become the first “associate member” of the EU.

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She announced the move during her 2026 State of the Union address in Strasbourg, to an audience including not only MEPs but also Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who attended her speech in the midst of a trade war with the US.

Since late August, the Canadians have been pushing hard for the Europeans to build a closer relationship with them, though full EU membership is not an option as Canada is not a European state.

During her speech before the MEPs on Wednesday, von der Leyen invited the country to become “the first associate member of the European Union”.

“We share one ocean, one set of values, one way of seeing the world. And we will now build our shared future as well,” she added.

A new status

Expectations had been high over the last week after Carney spoke about building a “unique alliance” with the EU.

Canada is not a European state geographically, but it shares the same values as the EU – human rights, democracy, rule of law – which are necessary criteria for becoming a member state.

Several options already exist for countries that don’t have full membership. Norway, for instance, is part of the single market, the EU’s borderless area of free movement of goods, persons, services and capital. Oslo and Brussels also collaborate on joint defence initiatives.

Switzerland also has access to the single market through several agreements – and in the years since Brexit, the United Kingdom and the EU have secured the largest and broadest trade and cooperation deal in the bloc’s history, coverering a wide range of sectors. The UK is now taking part in several EU programmes such as Horizon Europe, the EU’s research and innovation programme.

Euronews has learned that Ottawa is already in talks with Brussels to join the Erasmus+ exchange program, Horizon Europe research grants, and mutual recognition of workers’ qualifications.

However, “associate member” is a completely new status, and key questions have not yet been answered – chief among them, whether Canada will have voting rights in EU institutions. Despite their regulatory harmonisation with the bloc, Norway and Switzerland have no say on EU legislation.

A new alliance with Ottawa

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz floated the idea last May of an “associate membership” for Ukraine, which is urgently seeking to enter the EU. In a letter sent to EU leaders, he argued that this status would grant Ukraine access to the decision-making bodies – the European Council, the European Commission and the European Parliament – without voting rights or a dedicated portfolio.

It would also allow the country to tap into certain EU-funded programmes on a “step-by-step” basis.

It’s hard to see Canada in the same category as Ukraine, a country which is at war, but von der Leyen’s announcement on Wednesday nonetheless sent a strong political signal in a volatile world where historical alliances are shifting.

“Europe and Canada believe in democracy. That power does not belong to the strongest, the richest, or the loudest – but to all of us,” she said. “Democracies have the freedom to choose with whom to work.”

She also called for a new alliance with Ottawa, which could include tech, defence, Arctic joint projects, but also energy, critical minerals and artificial intelligence.

“We will move from CETA to an Alliance for the Future to create a common prosperity and economic security space,” she said, referring to the 2016 EU-Canada trade agreement that removed tariff barriers between both sides and has been provisionally applied.

The economic and security cooperation between both partners is set to be pushed further during a summit in Montreal in October.

Published on 15/09/2026 – 17:02 GMT+2•Updated
17:53

In a document sent to EU legislators and seen by Euronews, the US has threatened the EU with retaliation if it does not scrap European preference provisions in its multiannual budget.

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EU member states are currently discussing the EU’s long-term budget (2028-2034), which includes a €402 billion fund dedicated to competitiveness that favours the production of key goods within the EU, including in defence.

The measure would potentially exclude foreign firms from EU financing to protect strategic and economic security interests.

“With further expansion of European preference measures in EU defence funds, the United States will review all potential response measures, including a rollback of the existing ‘Buy American’ blanket waivers and exceptions associated with the RDPAs [Reciprocal Defence Procurement Agreements] with 19 of the 27 member states,” the non-paper reads.

The Buy American Act requires the US government, including the US Department of Defence, to give preference to products manufactured in the US for certain public procurements, with some exceptions being granted in defence for some EU countries.

The non-paper adds that the European preference would impede “partnership” and “collaboration” with the US, and calls on the EU to introduce a “made with Europe” system – or, in the specific area of defence, a “made in NATO”.

Trade tensions

The US’s latest warning comes after the creation of the Security Action for Europe programme in 2025, already sparked trade tensions between Washington and Brussels over a European preference for joint purchases of arms and military equipment.

The “made in Europe” approach is also pushed by France and the European Commission in several pieces of legislation over the last year designed to boost EU industry, with foreign countries lobbying hard against being excluded from the EU market.

The US and EU have been at loggerheads over trade since the start of the second Trump administration, amid repeated tariff threats and disputes over environmental and digital regulations which the White House deems to be non-tariff barriers.

The Commission hoped that the conclusion of a trade agreement in July 2025 would be a step towards a more stable transatlantic relationship.

Published on
14/09/2026 – 16:42 GMT+2

EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič will visit Manila next week to finalise a trade agreement with the Philippines, the European Commission confirmed to Euronews on Monday.

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The agreement is nearing conclusion as Brussels has increasingly looked to the Asia-Pacific over the past year to diversify its trade ties.

Since the return to power of US President Donald Trump, the global trade order has been shifting, with the EU seeking new markets for its exports.

The latest round of EU-Philippines trade talks took place in May, with access to public procurement emerging as the final sticking point. An agreement would mark a shift for the Philippines, which has so far kept public contracts closed to foreign bidders.

The Commission told MEPs earlier this month that the rest of the agreement was ready. The aim is to lift trade barriers between both partners in most sectors.

An official from the EU executive also told MEPs that sanitary and phytosanitary rules for food products were “ambitious”, alongside automotive standards that would improve EU manufacturers’ access to the Philippine market. The official added that the EU and the Philippines were “complementary” in both industrial goods and agriculture.

The deal is an important one for Manila, which has been hit by US tariffs in 2025 and by the war in Iran, which heavily impacted energy prices in the country.

However, the Philippines also reached “upper-middle-income country” status in August, granted by the World Bank, which makes it a promising market — “One of the most dynamic economies in the East Asia Pacific region since 2010,” the World Bank said.

Bilateral trade in goods between the EU and the Philippines amounted to €16.8 billion in 2024. That same year, the EU was the Philippines’ fourth-largest trading partner, accounting for 7% of the country’s total trade in goods, while the Philippines was the EU’s 39th-largest trading partner, accounting for 0.3% of the EU’s total trade in goods.

After the Philippines, the Commission aims to conclude talks with Thailand, making 2026 a strong year for EU trade deals across Asia and the Pacific, with agreements already reached with Australia and India.

Published on 07/03/2026 – 8:00 GMT+1•Updated
11/09/2026 – 22:42 GMT+2

France will push back against a European Commission plan to fast-track ratification of trade agreements by circulating only English-language versions during talks with EU governments and lawmakers, skipping translation into the bloc’s 24 official languages, according to several sources.

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The slow ratification of the contentious EU–Mercosur trade deal has frustrated the Commission, which wants to accelerate negotiations and bring deals into force more quickly as it seeks new markets amid rising geopolitical tensions.

Translating the agreements into every official EU language can take months due to the legal scrubbing required before the ratification process begins.

The EU executive has confirmed to Euronews that trade chief Maroš Šefčovič told EU trade ministers in February that the trade deal with India concluded on 27 January could serve as a test case for using English as the main language during ratification.

“We lost almost €300 billion by not having the Mercosur agreement in place since 2021, if it comes to the GDP, and more than €200 billion in export opportunities,” Šefčovič told journalists after meeting ministers on 20 February, adding that once negotiations end it can take up to 2.5 years before businesses can operate in partner countries.

“In today’s world, we cannot simply lose the time,” he said.

Šefčovič said the Commission would ensure the agreements are translated into all 24 official EU languages once published in the Official Journal, i.e. after ratification. He added the proposal was backed by at least seven member states at the meeting, though not all countries had time to speak.

French sources who spoke to Euronews were insistent that Paris would vigorously oppose the move to English-only agreements if necessary.

“As a matter of principle, we defend the use of all the languages of the Union, and in particular French, which is one of the EU’s working languages,” one official told Euronews.

‘Transparency, precision and understanding’

Language policy in the bloc’s institutions remains politically sensitive for countries such as France, whose language has declined sharply over the past decades as English massively dominates daily work in the European Union institutions – despite French, German and English being the three official working languages.

“Switching entirely to English raises a legal and democratic issue, and the Commission is well aware of it,” another French official told Euronews.

On its website, the European Commission says linguistic diversity is essential and that the EU promotes multilingualism in its institutional work.

The bloc once even had a commissioner dedicated to multilingualism, though the portfolio was gradually merged with others and eventually disappeared.

“I have the impression that in some cases the Commission seizes the opportunity to push the idea that English has a superior status, and that the other official languages are translation languages that can come later,” Michele Gazzola, expert in language policy, said.

He added that relying only on English during ratification could pose problems for members of the European Parliament, and even more so if national parliaments are involved.

“It’s a matter of transparency, precision and understanding.”

Published on 09/09/2026 – 19:07 GMT+2•Updated
21:09

The European Commission unveiled on Wednesday a legislative proposal allowing EU public authorities to favour European companies in public procurement for key public services such as energy, water, railways, ports, airports and postal services.

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The move comes as European policymakers seek to shield the bloc’s market from China amid heated trade negotiations, as the EU grapples with a trade deficit with Beijing of roughly €1 billion a day.

Public procurement markets in Europe represent €2 trillion every year — 15% of Europe’s GDP.

“Public money must serve our collective interests,” Commission Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné said on Wednesday. “A public buyer will be able to organise his European preference and to exclude operators coming from countries with which we do not agree on public markets, both on the basis of the nationality of the company or on the base of the origin of the products.”

Under the Commission’s proposal, EU public authorities will be able to exclude non-European companies from public contracts when they come from countries that do not allow Europeans access to their own public procurement markets.

“A municipality will be very clearly able to exclude a Chinese company or a European company that offers Chinese products,” Séjourné added. “It will also be able to give more points and more visibility in his offer to European offers compared to competition offers.”

Swift reaction from China

The Commission proposes that at least 30% of the evaluation of supplies for public procurement rely on quality criteria and not only on price, which will also hit low-cost Chinese products.

“The new standard is the best quality-price ratio, and not just the price,” Séjourné said. “Our choices must also be able to meet social and environmental demands, but also sovereignty.”

The legislation, which still has to be adopted by the EU co-legislators — the European Parliament and the EU Council — prompted a swift reaction from China. In a statement released after the commission’s announcement, China’s Chamber of Commerce to the EU said that such a European preference could “distort a level playing field” for Chinese companies participating in the European public procurement market.

“Public procurement should not discriminate against suppliers or goods on the basis of the supplier’s nationality or the country of origin of the goods.”

In March, another proposal creating a European preference in EU strategic sectors such as green tech, cars and energy-intensive industries also prompted Chinese ire, with Beijing threatening to retaliate.

EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič will travel to China in early October, hoping to reach a political deal with Beijing to rebalance the trade relationship with the EU.

Published on 09/09/2026 – 19:07 GMT+2•Updated
19:09

The European Commission unveiled on Wednesday a legislative proposal allowing EU public authorities to favour European companies in public procurement for key public services such as energy, water, railways, ports, airports and postal services.

ADVERTISEMENT

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The move comes as European policymakers seek to shield the bloc’s market from China amid heated trade negotiations, as the EU grapples with a trade deficit with Beijing of roughly €1 billion a day.

Public procurement markets in Europe represent €2 trillion every year — 15% of Europe’s GDP.

“Public money must serve our collective interests,” Commission Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné said on Wednesday. “A public buyer will be able to organise his European preference and to exclude operators coming from countries with which we do not agree on public markets, both on the basis of the nationality of the company or on the base of the origin of the products.”

Under the Commission’s proposal, EU public authorities will be able to exclude non-European companies from public contracts when they come from countries that do not allow Europeans access to their own public procurement markets.

“A municipality will be very clearly able to exclude a Chinese company or a European company that offers Chinese products,” Séjourné added. “It will also be able to give more points and more visibility in his offer to European offers compared to competition offers.”

Swift reaction from China

The Commission proposes that at least 30% of the evaluation of supplies for public procurement rely on quality criteria and not only on price, which will also hit low-cost Chinese products.

“The new standard is the best quality-price ratio, and not just the price,” Séjourné said. “Our choices must also be able to meet social and environmental demands, but also sovereignty.”

The legislation, which still has to be adopted by the EU co-legislators — the European Parliament and the EU Council — prompted a swift reaction from China. In a statement released after the commission’s announcement, China’s Chamber of Commerce to the EU said that such a European preference could “distort a level playing field” for Chinese companies participating in the European public procurement market.

“Public procurement should not discriminate against suppliers or goods on the basis of the supplier’s nationality or the country of origin of the goods.”

In March, another proposal creating a European preference in EU strategic sectors such as green tech, cars and energy-intensive industries also prompted Chinese ire, with Beijing threatening to retaliate.

EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič will travel to China in early October, hoping to reach a political deal with Beijing to rebalance the trade relationship with the EU.

Published on 08/09/2026 – 14:29 GMT+2•Updated
15:54

Three MEPs have agreed in a report to be published Wednesday to tighten the requirements for foreign direct investment in the EU, restricting access to the European market for Chinese investors, Euronews has learned.

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The report comes from the European Parliament’s rapporteurs on the proposed Industrial Accelerator Act, MEPs Christophe Grudler (Renew), Pierre Jouvet (S&D) and MEP Anna Cavazzini (The Greens). The act was presented by the European Commission last March and creates a European preference on the EU market to favour products made in Europe, in a move to protect strategic sectors of EU industry from foreign competition.

However, China has threatened several times to retaliate against the legislation, which is still under discussion, putting access to the EU market at the top of the agenda in some ongoing trade negotiations with Brussels.

The exclusive details of the report obtained by Euronews show that in sectors where China is dominant, among them electric vehicles, solar panels, critical raw materials and batteries, the three rapporteurs want to impose strict requirements on investments exceeding €50 million, a threshold lower than the €100 million initially proposed by the Commission.

For such investments, any investor from a country holding 40% of the sector’s global market share will have to meet six conditions: own no more than 49% of the share capital of the EU target; make the investment through a joint venture with an EU entity; transfer technologies to Europeans; ensure that at least 60% of the workforce consists of EU workers; reinvest at least 1% of annual revenue into research and development within the EU; and source at least 30% of manufacturing inputs from within the bloc.

A signal to Beijing

The rapporteurs have added to the Commission’s proposal investments in other sectors such as wind power, electrolysers and heat pumps, making it necessary for the investor to meet at least three of the conditions above.

The report also restricts access to public procurement and public support schemes to products made in the 27 EU member states across areas such as clean technologies, cars and energy-intensive industries.

The Commission will only be allowed to extend the scope to products coming from non-EU countries under strict conditions, such as the application of reciprocal access for Europeans to foreign countries’ public procurement.

This follows intense lobbying from EU foreign partners, which want their products to be recognised as “made in Europe” to access the EU market. Many, such as the United Kingdom, argued that EU value chains were too intertwined with their own market to exclude them.

The report by the three MEPs will now have to be adopted by EU lawmakers before discussions start with EU member states on this future legislation.

However, it sends a signal to China that Europeans will not give up in their attempt to protect the EU market from China’s aggressive industrial policy.