Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Europe endless – Kraftwerk
- Introduction
- 1 Lessons from the Past? The 1954 Association Agreement between the UK and the European Coal and Steel Community
- 2 From the European Free Trade Association to the European Economic Community and the European Economic Area: Portugal’s Post-Second World War Path
- 3 Norway and the European Economic Area: Why the Most Comprehensive Trade Agreement Ever Negotiated Is Not Good Enough
- 4 Switzerland: Striking Hard Bargains with Soft Edges
- 5 The Customs Union between Turkey and the European Union
- 6 Ukraine: The Association Agreement Model
- 7 Canada and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
- 8 The World Trade Organization Model
- 9 “Singapore on the Thames”
- 10 The United Kingdom and the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership
- 11 Australia (and New Zealand) after the 1973 “Great Betrayal”
- 12 What Future for the Crown Dependencies, Overseas Territories and Gibraltar?
- 13 The Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: A Flexible and Imaginative Solution for the Unique Circumstances on the Island of Ireland?
- 14 EU–UK Security Relations after Brexit
- 15 The UK Still In Europe? Is the UK’s Membership of the Council of Europe In Doubt?
- Afterword
- Index
7 - Canada and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 December 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Europe endless – Kraftwerk
- Introduction
- 1 Lessons from the Past? The 1954 Association Agreement between the UK and the European Coal and Steel Community
- 2 From the European Free Trade Association to the European Economic Community and the European Economic Area: Portugal’s Post-Second World War Path
- 3 Norway and the European Economic Area: Why the Most Comprehensive Trade Agreement Ever Negotiated Is Not Good Enough
- 4 Switzerland: Striking Hard Bargains with Soft Edges
- 5 The Customs Union between Turkey and the European Union
- 6 Ukraine: The Association Agreement Model
- 7 Canada and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
- 8 The World Trade Organization Model
- 9 “Singapore on the Thames”
- 10 The United Kingdom and the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership
- 11 Australia (and New Zealand) after the 1973 “Great Betrayal”
- 12 What Future for the Crown Dependencies, Overseas Territories and Gibraltar?
- 13 The Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: A Flexible and Imaginative Solution for the Unique Circumstances on the Island of Ireland?
- 14 EU–UK Security Relations after Brexit
- 15 The UK Still In Europe? Is the UK’s Membership of the Council of Europe In Doubt?
- Afterword
- Index
Summary
For a while, the Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union, which provisionally entered into force on 21 September 2017, seemed to be the preferred post-Brexit default option for the United Kingdom, at least in the eyes of the prime minister, Boris Johnson, who on 3 February 2020 declared, “We want a comprehensive free trade agreement, similar to Canada’s.”1 But the initial suggestion of aiming for an ambitious “CETA+” soon lost steam and the Conservative government started instead to talk about a more basic CETA-like agreement that would allow the UK to escape key EU regulations and to align with the EU's regulatory regime at the lowest level possible. And then, when negotiations between the EU and the UK officially started, the UK turned even further away from the CETA template by stressing the goal of regulatory independence.
From an analytical perspective, the idea that the CETA could be a model for the UK seemed a little far-fetched from the outset, for three reasons. First, the UK's economy (2019 gross domestic product (GDP) = $2,910 billion), is much larger than Canada's economy (2019 GDP = $1,730 billion) and, usually, size counts when it comes to the scope of trade agreements. Second, the UK is much more relevant, in terms of exports and imports, to EU economies than it is to Canada. This observation holds particularly for financial services, where, as will be seen below, the CETA does not even go beyond existing World Trade Organization (WTO) practices. Third, the gravity model shows that distance is critical in regard to trade volumes. The CETA is an agreement between faraway entities and can't be easily used as a model for neighbouring economies.
However, analytical considerations often do not square with political considerations, and so CETA might yet become an option for the UK–EU negotiators if the Johnson government's “hard Brexit” option does not materialize. But given that, as matters currently stand, the transition period ends on 31 December 2020, it would be an illusion to expect that a CETA-style agreement could be negotiated in the few months left before then, especially given that the Covid-19 pandemic has interrupted and badly delayed talks between the parties.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Outside the EUOptions for Britain, pp. 87 - 96Publisher: Agenda PublishingPrint publication year: 2020
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