Quebec leader calls for closer trans-Atlantic ties
The Associated Press | February 4, 2009
Quebec leader calls for closer trans-Atlantic ties
BRUSSELS: Quebec Premier Jean Charest said Wednesday the best way to protect European, U.S. or Canadian jobs in the current recession is by forging ahead with efforts to craft better trans-Atlantic trade ties, not through protectionist policies.
Charest said it was now "more urgent" for the 27-nation EU bloc and the North American countries to move faster to seek new free-trade pacts.
The Quebec leader told The Associated Press that both sides of the Atlantic had to resist growing demands to set up new barriers to trade in wake of recent worker protests in Britain against foreign workers and "Buy American" provisions in massive U.S. economic stimulus bill.
France also is considering making a new car bailout to its national carmakers conditional that they buy only French car parts or invest only in France in return for the aid.
"Our interest lies in trade agreements," Charest told the AP. "Protectionism is exactly the wrong answer."
He added that plans for closer economic ties should be seen as a "counterbalance" to protectionist policies, "as a resistance to these reflexes our countries have."
He said the biggest problem for North American and EU countries are their limited markets.
"Jobs are lost because of a lack of market elsewhere," he said. "The financial crisis with all its difficulties do bring opportunities."
The premier said the conclusion of an EU-Canada wide-ranging free trade pact would answer labor unrest and serve as a model for an EU-U.S. pact as well. Such an accord could include the free movement of skilled workers between Europe and Canada.
He was hopeful the EU and Canada could conclude an accord in two years time.
Those negotiations are expected to be launched in May.
Charest was in Brussels for talks with EU officials, including European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, to drum up support for speedy negotiations on an EU-Canada accord.
"For Europe, there is more to this than a negotiation with Canada, this is also an investment in a broader trans-Atlantic relationship that needs to be enforced," said Charest.
EU nations still have to approve a negotiating mandate to start those talks, and some such as Denmark are keen to push Canada into signing up to binding emissions cuts to fight climate change as part of such a trade pact.
Denmark is hosting climate change negotiations at the end of the year in Copenhagen.
The EU has called on Canada to reduce CO2 emissions by 30 percent of 1990 levels by 2020.
Charest said Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper "should signal as rapidly as possible" Canada’s intention to introduce an emissions trading plan similar to one in the EU as part of signing up to a new international climate treaty.
Charest added that a new free-trade pact could replicate European moves to a "low-carbon" economy, investing heavily in renewable energy projects like wind, hydro and solar power sectors.
Harper has been criticized at home for doing little to address climate change after he pulled the country out of the Kyoto protocol, which commits industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He has however, called on President Barack Obama to agree to a new North American climate change pact.
