Poland threatens to block part of EU-Canada trade deal

[anthony jackson]

https://www.ft.com/content/9c83f060-9321-11e7-a9e6-11d2f0ebb7f0

[anthony jackson]

there have been numerous requests for the text of this article, so i have obliged, but please NB, dont post it, or circulate further, FT do monitor such things and have "harassed" me in the past.......

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https://www.ft.com/content/9c83f060-9321-11e7-a9e6-11d2f0ebb7f0

Poland threatens to block part of EU-Canada trade deal 

 Warsaw objects to plan for settling disputes between investors and governments 

 8 HOURS AGO by: James Shotter in Krynica and Jim Brunsden in Brussels 

Poland is threatening to block a part of the EU’s trade deal with Canada because of its concerns over a planned mechanism for resolving disputes between governments and multinational companies. How to enshrine investor protection in trade agreements has become an increasingly vexed question for the EU. Traditional tribunal systems for settling disputes have come in for fierce and growing criticism from campaign groups worried that they can be used by companies as a tool to undermine environmental and social rights. The EU’s pact with Canada — known as Ceta — contains a different court system intended to address such concerns. A panel of judges would be appointed to hear cases, consisting of five EU judges, five Canadian judges, and five judges from third countries — a system that Brussels has said would provide improved transparency and democratic oversight. However, Warsaw is worried that this could lead to cases involving Poland being heard without a Polish judge. It is therefore pushing for the panel to be expanded to include a judge from each of the EU’s current 28 nations. Failing that, it wants clarity on how the EU judges on the panel will be assigned to cases, to ensure that the procedure is fair and does not favour particular countries. “Our trade partners would always enjoy a right to nominate their judges, while a particular [EU] Member State would not have such a guarantee,” the committee that advises the Polish government on its foreign investment policy warned the EU last month in a letter seen by the FT. “Such a fundamental inequality in the system should not be accepted, for legal, political and financial reasons,” the committee said in the letter, sent to Cecilia Malmström, the EU trade commissioner. RECOMMENDED National parliaments should ratify EU trade deals, says ECJ judge Japan shows the world how to strike trade deals The Big Read: Arbitration on trial: the US and UK’s fear of the supranational The advisory committee warned that, if Poland’s requests are “not properly addressed,” it “will not be in a position” to recommend that the government “accept EU and member states trade and investment agreements.” The bulk of the Ceta agreement is set to provisionally apply from September 21 — a date which will be unaffected by the latest Polish move because the trade deal has already been approved by the European Parliament and the Council — the EU body that represents national governments. Still, should Warsaw really take the step of refusing to ratify Ceta, it would hold up the full legal entry into force of the deal and, notably, the establishment of the investor court system itself. Ceta was almost derailed last year by the Belgian region of Wallonia, whose leaders feared that the deal did not go far enough in protecting local and environmental standards. Brussels Briefing Email Stay up to speed on developments across Europe with news and comment from our Brussels bureau. DAILY One-Click Sign Up The Wallonian authorities were eventually placated after trade negotiators agreed an “interpretative declaration” on the most contentious elements of the agreement. Belgium’s federal government also agreed to seek an opinion from the EU courts on the legality of the new system — a step it took on Wednesday. Since the Wallonia spat, Brussels has been engaged in talks with national governments on how to fine-tune the functioning of the investment court system in Ceta, which it hopes to then use as a model in negotiations with other countries. European Commission sources confirmed that Brussels had received the letter and told the FT that the Polish concerns “relate to the number of judges and relatedly the procedures for appointment.” “This is an issue which Poland has been raising for some time and which the commission has been working on,” they said, adding that further talks will take place over the autumn with Warsaw and with the Council. The difficulties with Ceta have fuelled debate in EU circles about how the bloc could structure trade deals differently in future in order to smooth ratification. A ruling in the European courts in May opened the door to the bloc in future reaching narrow trade deals — excluding issues of investor protection — that could simply be ratified by the Council and European Parliament. This would remove the need for the kinds of national ratification processes that effectively handed Wallonia a veto over Ceta. Under such an approach, investor issues could be dealt with in legally separate agreements. The commission held an “orientation debate” on Wednesday on the implications of the court’s ruling.

On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 1:26 PM, anthony jackson <arj...@googlemail.com> wrote:

https://www.ft.com/content/9c83f060-9321-11e7-a9e6-11d2f0ebb7f0