CETA, the trade agreement between the European Union and Canada, is at risk. To say it is the Minister of Economic Development Carlo Calenda, commenting on the European Union's decision to leave it to governments to ratify it nation by nation, instead of approving it at European level.
The proposal of the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker to reserve the decision exclusively to the EU with the formula "EU-only" had, in fact, been strongly opposed by various European governments, including those of Germany and France, unwilling to cede sovereignty.
Italy, on the other hand, was one of the few countries to push to inaugurate the "fast track", i.e. to have the majority of theEuropean Parliament the agreement to countersign it shortly. Brussels, in a moment of strong Euroscepticism, has decided to launch a sort of mixed competence, establishing that ratification will have to pass through the national parliaments.
According to Minister Calenda "The unprecedented decision of the European Commission to approve the agreement with Canada as mixed deal and therefore submitting it for ratification by about 38 parliamentary assemblies of the Member States represents a further damage to the construction of Europe and a decisive step towards the deadlock of the trade policy of the Union”.
A position also taken by Federalimentare according to which the non-approval of CETA is a "serious damage to the protection of Italian agri-food excellence".
