THE HAGUE, Feb 18 — The Dutch lower house of parliament today approved a wide-ranging EU-Canada trade deal, despite bitter resistance by opposition parties concerned about food safety and the impact on agriculture.
The deal was narrowly approved by 72 votes to 69, with all four parties in Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s coalition and a single other MP supporting the legislation.
The socially conservative Christian Union, the smallest coalition partner, demanded guarantees before supporting the accord.
The small party raised concerns about the control of meat imports to exclude hormone-treated beef and has asked for tighter customs controls.
In a rare show of unity, all opposition parties including sworn political enemies GroenLinks (Green-Left), Labour and anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom Party as well as the right-wing populist Forum for Democracy voted against.
The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) took effect on a preliminary basis in September 2017, but it must also be approved by each of the European Union’s member states to become permanent.
The legislation in the Netherlands will now head to the 75-seat Senate, where it may face even more of an uphill battle to get passed. That vote may take several weeks.
There, Rutte’s coalition only holds 32 seats and would have to depend on six more opposition votes for the legislation to get through.
The trade deal removes tariffs on nearly all goods and services between Canada and Europe and has led to a rise of 15 per cent in EU exports to Canada, according to European officials.
Dutch Foreign Trade Minister Sigrid Kaag, one of the main proponents of the deal, has warned that turning it down would “cause immense damage to the Netherlands and the European Union.”
“It will give the wrong signal, especially now that we are negotiating with the United Kingdom about a post-Brexit trade accord,” she recently said in a newspaper interview. — AFP
