Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) on the agenda at Jobs Committee meeting

16 January 2017

Representatives from the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation will attend in order to brief the Committee on the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

CETA is a new trade agreement between the EU and Canada, which was approved and signed by both parties on 30 October 2016. The European Parliament and EU national parliaments must approve CETA before it can take full effect.

Committee Chair, Mary Butler TD, said, “CETA is a landmark trade accord, which will have wide-reaching effects on Europe’s future trade policy. For Irish exports, we hope to see an increase in trade with Canada, but there are still areas of concern, for example, in relation to the lifting of agricultural quotas into the EU and its effect on the agri-food sector. There are also concerns over the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism. At tomorrow’s meeting, our Committee members will be keen to address these and other issues in order to increase the considerable further trade potential between Ireland and Canada.”

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