On 30 October 2016, in Brussels, Canada, the European Union and the Member States signed the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). The text was published in OJ L 11 of 14 January 2017. It is a mixed agreement: the Parties are Canada, of the one part, and the Union and its Member States, of the other. A Joint Interpretative Instrument was signed the same day. It is not TTIP and it does not create a customs union.

Chapter 2 eliminates, on application, the great majority of customs duties on goods, with staging in the annexes. Each Party keeps its trade policy towards third countries. Article 30.6(1): the Agreement does not confer rights or obligations that can be directly invoked before the courts of the Union or of the Member States. Article 26.1 establishes the CETA Joint Committee.

Chapter 8 on investment provides a Tribunal and an Appellate Tribunal (the ICS), not ad-hoc NAFTA-style arbitration. Council Decision (EU) 2017/38 limits provisional application of that chapter to Articles 8.1 to 8.8, 8.13, 8.15 (except paragraph 3) and 8.16, and only as regards foreign direct investment. Investment protection and investor–State dispute settlement are not provisionally applied.

Chapter 20 protects geographical indications listed in Annex 20-A. Chapters 22, 23 and 24 concern trade and sustainable development, labour and the environment; their provisional application respects the division of competences between the Union and the Member States. Chapter 13 on financial services has provisional-application carve-outs for portfolio investment and investment disputes.

Article 30.7(2): the Agreement enters into force on the first day of the second month after the Parties exchange notifications that internal procedures are complete, or on another agreed date. Article 30.7(3) allows provisional application. The notice in OJ L 238 announced provisional application from 21 September 2017, subject to Decision 2017/38. Full entry into force awaits ratification by all signatories.

Signature followed Belgium’s internal agreement after Wallonia’s reservations; those reservations are not articles of CETA. Court of Justice Opinion 1/17 of 30 April 2019, on the compatibility of the ICS with Union law, is later. The United Kingdom signed as a Member State; its withdrawal from the Union is a later fact, not a 2016 clause.

Image: Justus Lipsius building, Brussels, place of signature; Szilas, 8 May 2007; CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. Cropped to 16:9.

Source consulted: Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement. Treaty text: Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada, of the one part, and the European Union and its Member States, of the other part, Brussels, 30 October 2016.