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Italy’s Di Maio says parliamentary majority will reject EU-Canada trade
deal
MILAN, July 14, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Italy’s deputy prime minister Luigi Di
Maio said Friday that a majority in parliament would reject an EU-Canada free
trade deal, thereby threatening to scupper the entire agreement.
“Soon the CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) will come to
parliament for ratification and the majority will reject it,” Di Maio told
Italy’s main farming union, the Coldiretti.
“Any Italian civil servants abroad who continue to defend lousy treaties
like CETA will be removed,” he added in comments criticised by industry and
consumer groups.
“Being here means, in my view, reclaiming a bit of healthy sovereignty,”
said Di Maio, who heads the populist, eurosceptic Five Star Movement.
He is joint deputy prime minister along with the Matteo Salvini, leader of
the far-right League party.
“We must defend Italy and the Italian economy,” he added.
Agriculture Minister Gian Marco Centinaio, a member of the League, said
last month that Italy’s parliamentary majority would not ratify the pact as
“it only protects a small part of our protected designation of origin”
products.
“We shall ask parliament not to ratify thir treaty and others similar to
CETA,” Centinaio told La Stampa in an interview,” saying that was consistent
with the government manifesto agreed by the coalition partners.
Vincenzo Boccia, who heads Confindustria, Italy’s employers’ federation,
said it would in his view be “a grave mistake” not to ratify the accord,
RadioCor financial news agency reported.
“If the free trade treaty allows greater exports then it is in the
national interest — if less exports, then no. The data suggest, it seems to
me objectively, to open (Canada) up to Italy, rather than close it off,” said
Boccia, stressing export’s role in creating wealth.
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The consumer association ADUC also criticised Di Maio’s opposition to the
accord, highlighting that CETA notably protected 40 Italian products on the
Canadian market, “a higher figure than ever.”
The European Union and Canada formally signed the Comprehensive Economic
and Trade Agreement (CETA) in October 2016, at a time when anti-globalisation
sentiment was at fever pitch in Europe.
The accord eliminates 98 percent of tariffs between the EU and Canada.
It needs to be ratified by all 28 members of the European Union in order
to come into force. To date, 11 countries in total have ratified though it
provisionally came into effect last September.
Its opponents have long branded it as a danger to health, democracy and
the rule of law.
Farmers in Italy protested in 2017, demanding that the government scrap
the pact.
They wanted speciality products such as Parmesan cheese to be labelled
“Made in Italy”.
CETA’s supporters see the pact as an extension of the global trade system
that faces a threat from protectionist US President Donald Trump.
BSS/AFP/HR/1020