CETA: Merkel wants the Bundestag vote – conflict with Juncker – tagesschau.de

The European-Canadian FTA CETA is controversial – mainly because it is the template for the still controversial TTIP agreement with the US. Now Chancellor Merkel is also on a collision course with the European Commission.

Chancellor Angela Merkel will leave the Bundestag vote on the European and Canadian trade agreements CETA. “We will ask the Bundestag for its opinion,” she said after the first day of the EU summit in Brussels. There are good reasons to consider the national parliaments so.

Earlier it became known that the European Commission does not want to participate in the decision on the agreement, the national parliaments. At the ratification then only the European Parliament would be involved. President Jean-Claude Juncker told the leaders, the provisions of the Agreement were alone in EU competence.

given Merkel said that the Commission had initially only set out its reasoning. That was no reason to ask them for it in the pillory. However, it also made clear that the authorities in Brussels thus goes on a collision course with most EU governments, although welcome the agreement, but insist on a national agreement. Juncker acknowledged that treatment by the national parliaments must be considered. A majority of Member States was that view.

The EU countries could now define unanimously that it does not want to follow the opinion of the Commission. It is conceivable that the adoption of the Agreement will be blocked indefinitely. One of the four Belgian regional parliaments would also agree, has already committed to a rejection. Bulgaria and Romania, in turn, want to connect an agreement with visa facilitation by Canada for its citizens.

In Brussels, however, there has long been concern that parliaments of individual states to block the development of European trade policy could. In the normal EU legislative procedure to vote on the Commission’s proposals from the Member States in the European Council and the European Parliament. The notion that only national parliaments granted democratic control, weakening the EU’s basic idea, Juncker said.

CETA looks according to the EU Commission for the abolition of 99 per cent of all duties. According to the authority would have sole responsibility for EU export industrial goods lead to savings of about 470 million euros annually. CETA is considered a blueprint for the mega-deal TTIP with the US. Both contracts will contribute to growth in trade with North America. Environmental and consumer advocates fear a lowering of standards.