Charest pushing free trade deal between Canada and European Union
Canadian Press
Charest pushing free trade deal between Canada and European Union
Remi Nadeau, Canadian Press
Friday, January 26, 2007
DAVOS, Switzerland (CP) — Quebec Premier Jean Charest is pushing for a free-trade deal between Canada and the European Union that he says could level the playing field with emerging markets.
Charest said Friday such an accord would allow Canada to tap the European market of 450 million consumers. He has already pitched the idea to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his provincial counterparts and says he has received a favourable reaction. Charest said Harper was "very enthusiastic."
Charest said a free-trade accord would help overcome obstacles to investment and stimulate the trade in goods and services. It would exclude agriculture.
"The European Union constitutes a market of relatively rich consumers who can buy our goods and our services," Charest said. "A deal would also facilitate the exchange of workers between Canada and Europe."
Canadian government data suggests such an exchange would boost Canadian exports by $2.4 billion per year.
"This would allow us to develop higher-level jobs to better counter the competition of emerging markets," Charest said.
The premier said the tentative negotiations at the Doah round of World Trade Organization meetings have created an exceptional opportunity that must be grabbed.
The Doah round encouraged a liberalization of world trade but stumbled on the question of agriculture.
Charest is confident a free-trade deal can be achieved even though the negotiating process is just starting.
"The most important element to make negotiations like this succeed is political goodwill," Charest said. "It is perhaps the ingredient which we needed to take the step we’re proposing today."
As part of his participation in the World Economic Forum at Davos, Charest met with Peter Mandelson, the European Union’s trade commissioner, who Charest said seemed open to the trade deal idea.
Mandelson would be the European Union’s negotiator in the exercise.
Charest told Harper before he left for Switzerland that he would talk about the trade deal project. He also sent a letter to Newfoundland-and-Labrador Premier Danny Williams, president of the Council of the Federation.
