Citizens’ Summit Contra CETA: It’s Not Only Wallonia

With the vote on the European Union-Canada trade agreement (CETA) on the agenda once more at the upcoming EU Council meeting tomorrow the representatives of European and Canadian cities and regions gathered at Brussels today for a “CETA Citizens’ Summit.” Gerardo Pisarello, vice mayor of the city of Barcelona, said that cities like his see CETA as a barrier to their plans to remunicipalize water and energy services and the attempts “to open up public procurement to small companies and cooperatives.”

More on the CETA Citizens’ Summit is here.

“We still can regulate,” acknowledged a representative from the German region of Bavaria criticising the deal, “but we might have to pay for it.” Extrajudicial investment-state dispute resolution and regulatory cooperation are the top concerns of cities and regions.

More than 2,000 cities and regions joined the Barcelona Declaration published in April and called on their governments to stop CETA and TTIP (the EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. This was also in support of the regional parliament in Wallonia, said Pisarello. The French-speaking Belgian region blocked the CETA vote of EU trade ministers on Tuesday.

The EU Council hopes to pass CETA tomorrow. Canadian Minister of Economy Crystia Freeland, according to CBC reports, made an 11^th hour effort to convince the leaders in Wallonia.

Member of the European Parliament Ska Keller (Green Party), one of the organisers of the Citizen Summit, announced further opposition in the European Parliament which gets to vote once EU governments signed the deal.

Video from the Citizens’ Summit: