L'accès aux marchés agricoles et la libéralisation du commerce des produits de la pêche occupent une place centrale dans les négociations de l'accord commercial global avec le Canada.

La Commission peut-elle indiquer si une étude d'impact spécifique a été menée récemment quant aux effets d'un éventuel accord sur les divers secteurs agricoles et agro-alimentaires de l'Union? Peut-elle présenter un état des lieux des négociations et détailler les offres qu'elle entend faire dans le domaine agricole?

Compte tenu de la situation particulière du territoire français de Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, qui bénéficie de conditions préférentielles pour l'exportation des produits de la pêche vers l'UE, la Commission peut-elle indiquer si elle envisage d'exclure de l'accord les lignes tarifaires relatives aux activités économiques essentielles à la vie économique de ce territoire (maquereau, homard, hareng ou noix de coquilles) ou si elle envisage de maintenir des contingents d'importation restreints?

The EU is committed to conducting Trade Sustainability Impact Assessments (SIA) as part of its trade policy-making process since 1999. The Trade SIA should assess the potential impact of proposed trade and economic liberalisation agreements on all pillars of sustainable development in order to optimise policy decision-making and assist with trade negotiations.

It is against this background that a Trade SIA is currently being carried out by external consultants concerning the EU-Canada CETA trade negotiations. The impact analysis will look in detail at social, economic and environmental impacts in the following 3 sectors and 11 sub-sectors; the agriculture, processed agricultural products (PAPs), and fisheries sector, and the sub-sectors of dairy, beverages, other PAPs; the industrial products sector, and the sub-sectors of mining, coal, and oil and petroleum products; the services sector, and the sub-sectors of transportation, financial, telecommunication, and other business services.

The draft final report is planned to be discussed at a meeting with civil society at the end of March 2011.

Further information and earlier preliminary reports can be found on the following website:

http://ec.europa.eu/trade/analysis/sustainability-impact-assessments/assessments.

The Commission regularly informs the European Parliament, mainly through the INTA Committee, of the developments in the CETA negotiations.

A decision on the treatment in CETA of the fisheries products for which Saint Pierre et Miquelon has an export potential and currently benefits of unilateral preferences (including origin derogations) is part of the preparation of future offers.

The Commission is aware of the particular situation of Saint Pierre et Miquelon, also in the context of the CETA. With this in mind, the Commission has recently accepted the request of Saint Pierre et Miquelon for a further derogation to its rules of origin for specific fisheries products. This derogation extends possible imports of raw fishery products, for example, from Canada, to be considered as originating in Saint Pierre et Miquelon, on the condition that sufficient processing took place locally. The final processed fishery products can then be exported to the European Union, duty-free. The described origin derogation is meant to be valid for a period of eight years and concerns a total annual quantity of 225 tonnes of processed lobster, 600 tonnes of processed herring and mackerel and 250 tonnes of processed mussels, in line with what Saint Pierre et Miquelon requested in order to safeguard its local processing industry and save local jobs in the fishery sector.

In addition, Saint Pierre et Miquelon already benefits from a origin derogation applicable until March 2013 for the following products: 250 tonnes of locally processed scallops; 105 tonnes of frozen lobster tails, claws and legs; 1,290 tonnes of fillets of hake, haddock, pollock, plaice, flounder, sole, codfish, red fish, bream, frozen turbot and Atlantic turbot; frozen meat or stuffed haddock, pollock, hake, codfish; salted cod fillets and whole salted codfish.