Ceta: Canada’s growth accelerator – TIME ONLINE

Ceta: Canada's growth accelerator – TIME ONLINE

While Germany debated on the agreement Ceta, Canadians are more free trade. Premier Stephen Harper’s political future depends on Ceta from.

26th September 2014 11:02 clock

Protests in Canada against the trade agreement Ceta | © Reuters

The time is well chosen. Just a day before the EU-Canada Summit in Ottawa, on the negotiations on the Free Trade Agreement Ceta to be completed, the Canadian Center for Policy Analysis has presented his criticism of Ceta on Thursday. More than a hundred pages covers the analysis.

“Canadians need to bring a lot of sacrifices for Ceta and end up getting a deal that benefits mainly large multinational companies,” says study author Scott Sinclair. Ceta would curtail democratic rights at all levels and limit the Government in defining some of the new environmental standards.

Sinclair cites an example that has been discussed rarely in public: The strengthened by Ceta patent protection. Drugs are among the most important trading goods between the EU and Canada. The Canadians have with the world’s highest per capita spending on

drugs, so the issue has political punch. Canada was here the EU come to meet and granted drugs from the EU is now a longer patent protection in Canada, says Sinclair. Not six, but eight years were the manufacturers are now protected from unwelcome competition. Critics estimate the cost of the extended patent protection to approximately $ 850 million – every year

But the Canadians could not care less criticism, they support the deal: According to a survey of Canadian pollster Angus Reid from. July advocate almost 70 per cent of Canadians Ceta. Eleven years ago, the same Institute asked Canadians what they would think of NAFTA, the free trade zone between Canada, the USA and Mexico. At that time, about 58 percent of respondents were opposed to the mood of the people was heated. This is currently nothing to feel.

When arriving EU sizes as the outgoing Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman van Rompuy in Ottawa on Friday, they meet a Canadian president of his political agenda has closely associated with free trade. The conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants Ceta explain to success – despite the fact that it is on the other side of the Atlantic duly surprised – and at least the German Federal Government still has changes to make. In October 2015 elections in Canada. Harper must prevail among other against Justin Trudeau, the 43-year-old leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, which aims to office of the prime minister with much enthusiasm. The 55-year-old Harper, since 2006 in the office, Ceta will gladly have previously off the table.