The European Parliament has approved a landmark free trade deal with Canada.
MEPs backed the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with 408 in favour, 254 against and 33 abstentions.
The deal, which could apply as early as April 2017, will remove tariffs on most traded goods and services but agricultural products such as dairy, poultry and eggs will be excluded.
The EU has also secured protection for more than 140 European food and drink names on the Canadian market.
Miles Beale, chief executive of the Wine & Spirit Trade Association, described the developments as “progressive”.
“The lifting of all import tariffs on wines and spirits will allow UK products to compete fairly with an important trading partner in an increasingly globalised market,” he said.
“Spirits such as gin and vodka will now be able to enjoy the same zero-tariff rates as whisky. CETA will allow British gin, which already accounts for one in every three bottles of UK spirit exports to Canada, to expand its reach overseas. Additionally English wine can look to the Canadian market with an increased incentive as a destination in their bid to grow exports of their world-renowned sparkling and still wines.”
Declared a mixed agreement by the European Commission in July 2016, CETA will now need to be ratified by national and regional parliaments.
Mark Dearn, senior trade campaigner at War on Want, said the future of the agreement remained far from certain due to the “legal hurdles” it still faces and “entrenched opposition in countries that are yet to vote on the deal”.
“CETA’s ‘corporate court’ process destroys equality before the law and will give big business new powers to sue our government,” he added. “The role of the UK government on CETA has been nothing short of appalling. It bypassed parliamentary scrutiny to sign us up to CETA and has presented, at best, questionable claims on CETA’s impacts on the UK which no one has ever seen. This leaves us with much to worry about in any future trade deals the government negotiates, in particular with Donald Trump’s USA.”
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