The European Union and Canada have officially cancelled the visit planned by Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau this Thursday to sign a landmark trade agreement.

Several days of discussions between multiple strands of Belgian government in disagreement over the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) came to an end this Thursday when they agreed on a list of conditions for Belgium's signature.

While the Belgian federal government and Dutch-speaking region agreed to sign the deal, French-speaking regional authorities used their constitutional right to veto it.

Agricultural exemption clause

The Belgian conditions were published by the state broadcaster RTBF on Thursday. Belgium is reserving the right to leave CETA in the future and to exclude agricultural products temporarily from the free trade deal “in case of a market imbalance, including when such imbalance is being observed for one product only”. The text added that the conditions for the agricultural exemption clause would need to be agreed at EU level within the year following the signature of CETA.

Belgium also states that CETA cannot affect existing European legislation on genetically modified products and "other new breeding technologies". Its regional authorities want assurances that their concerns on protected denominations of origin will be addressed.

The declaration provides for a renegotiation of the Investment Court System (ICS), which was included in CETA to police the agreement. There have been fears that this court could override national sovereignty and several Belgian regional authorities have made it clear that they will not allow ICS to operate in the initial phase of the deal, nor ratify the full treaty without alterations to the court. Belgium will seek a review of the mechanism by the European Court of Justice.

European institutions including the other 27 EU member states as well as regional Belgian parliaments must now agree to the latest developments. The various parties are reported to have set a deadline of Friday night to set a final EU-wide position.

Duty-free trade for meat and dairy

The proposed deal includes duty-free access for European beef and sheepmeat to Canada in exchange for allowing a quota of 50,000t of Canadian beef and 75,000t of pork into the EU. Canadian dairy products would have free access to the EU market, while 16,800t of high-value European cheese would be allowed into Canada.

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Belgium poses conditions to CETA trade deal as EU-Canada summit is cancelled

Belgian opposition has postponed the signature of the CETA agreement, which includes significant liberalisation of agri-food trade between Canada and the EU. A proposed solution emerged on Thursday.