Prime Minister Stephen Harper concludes his eight-day European trip unable to complete a trade agreement with the European Union, just as the opening of EU-U.S. talks raises the risk that Canada will be left out.
Harper, who met German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta on the sidelines of the Group of Eight leaders’ summit in Northern Ireland, couldn’t persuade his European peers to drop their remaining objections in the talks. One of the biggest sticking points for Canada is access for the country’s beef and pork producers, a concession that faces resistance from France and Ireland, two of Europe’s biggest meat suppliers.
Failure to ultimately reach an accord would undermine Harper’s efforts to diversify Canada’s trade away from the U.S., its largest trading partner. While Harper has made free trade a key plank of his economic agenda, completing six accords since 2006, none have been with major economies.
“The longer the matter is not brought to a conclusion, the more likely it becomes that the European Union will turn its attention to the U.S.,” said Lawrence Herman, a lawyer at Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP in Toronto who specializes in trade issues, by telephone June 7. If a pact isn’t reached in the next few weeks, it would represent “a rather serious setback for Canadian trade policy, given all the efforts of the Harper administration,” he said.
Read more: Harper Ends EU Trip Unable to Win Trade Deal Amid U.S. Talks (2) - Businessweek
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