Deal with Canada advanced - EU parliaments must prevail

OPPONENTS of the EU’s trade deal with Canada — Ceta — which was passed a major hurdle yesterday afternoon, say it is profoundly anti-democratic and tips the balance against governments in favour of international corporations — no matter where they are based.

They say it and TTIP override long-established protections for workers, the environment and the European idea of a social contract.

Its advocates say the deal, and Brexit negotiators will be dismayed to learn that it’s taken seven years to get this far, could boost trade between Canada and the EU by 20%.

This step in the process enables provisional implementation but the important word is “provisional”, as Ceta must satisfy some 40 national or regional parliaments in Europe before it can be finalised.

At a moment when the gap between rich and poor is widening at a dangerous rate, at a moment when inequality is becoming ever more normalised, this deal must be scrutinised in great detail by national parliaments to ensure that hard-won protections are not weakened in any way.

But most of all the idea that a national, democratically-elected parliament cannot arrange a society’s affairs as it chooses, if its proposals might disadvantage international investors, must be rejected absolutely and without any compunction.

As an infamous champion of free markets said once in another context: “That’s out, out, out.”