Answer given by Ms Malmström on behalf of the Commission

26.1.2017

With regard to the provisional application of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), the Commission would refer the Honourable Member to the Council decision on the provisional application of CETA between Canada, for the one part, and the European Union and its Member States, for the other part[1].

As regards the scope of the provisional application, the abovementioned Council decision excludes the following elements from provisional application: investment protection, portfolio investment, investment and investment dispute resolution, provisions from the financial services chapter insofar as they concern portfolio investment, protection of investment and the resolution of investment disputes between investors and states, the article on camcording in the Intellectual Property Chapter, the administrative proceedings and review and appeal in the Transparency Chapter, and the part of the article on taxation in the Exception Chapter.

In line with past practices of EU Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), provisional application will only take place after the vote of consent in the European Parliament. The complete and definitive entry into force of CETA can only take place after the ratification in all Member States.

National ratification procedures can take several years, as seen with recent past FTAs (EU-Korea, EU-Central America, etc.); in the interim, provisional application allows economic benefits of the agreement to flow promptly. For instance, in the case of the EU-Korea FTA, national ratification took four and a half years. During the period of its provisional application, the EU's exports to South Korea grew by 55% and the EU's EUR 7.6 billion trade deficit with Korea prior to the FTA turned into a trade surplus, amounting to EUR 7.3 billion.

• [1] Interinstitutional File: 2016/0220 NLE