The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA; French: accord économique et commercial global, AECG; German: Umfassendes Wirtschafts- und Handelsabkommen) is a free-trade agreement between Canada and the European Union and its member states. It has been provisionally applied, thus removing 98% of the preexisting tariffs between the two sides.
The negotiations were concluded in August 2014. All 27 European Union member states and former member state United Kingdom approved the final text of CETA for signature, with Belgium being the final country to give its approval. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, travelled to Brussels on 30 October 2016 to sign on behalf of Canada. The European Parliament approved the deal on 15 February 2017. The agreement, being a mixed agreement, is subject to ratification by the EU and all EU member States in order to be fully applied. Until then, substantial parts are provisionally applied from 21 September 2017, excluding investment protection. After a challenge by Belgium, the European Court of Justice upheld the agreement on 30 April 2019, in its opinion 1/17, that the dispute resolution mechanism complies with EU law. As of May 2026, only 17 of 27 EU countries have ratified (as did the United Kingdom before leaving the EU), and Cyprus has voted against ratification.
History
CETA is Canada's biggest bilateral initiative since NAFTA. It was started as a result of a joint study "Assessing the Costs and Benefits of a Closer EU-Canada Economic Partnership", which was released in October 2008. Officials announced the launch of negotiations on 6 May 2009 at the Canada-EU Summit in Prague. This, after the Canada-EU Summit in Ottawa on 18 March 2004 where leaders agreed to a framework for a new Canada-EU Trade and Investment Enhancement Agreement (TIEA). The TIEA was intended to move beyond traditional market access issues, to include areas such as trade and investment facilitation, competition, mutual recognition of professional qualifications, financial services, e-commerce, temporary entry, small- and medium-sized enterprises, sustainable development, and sharing science and technology.
The TIEA was also to build on a Canada-EU regulatory co-operation framework for promoting bilateral co-operation on approaches to regulatory governance, advancing good regulatory practices and facilitating trade and investment. In addition to lowering barriers, the TIEA was meant to heighten Canadian and European interest in each other's markets. The TIEA continued until 2006 when Canada and the EU decided to pause negotiations. This led to negotiations for a Canada-European Union trade agreement (later renamed the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA), and this agreement will go beyond the TIEA toward an agreement with a much broader and more ambitious scope.
An agreement in principle was signed by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso on 18 October 2013. The negotiations were concluded on 1 August 2014.
The trade agreement was officially presented on 25 September 2014 by Harper and Barroso during an EU – Canada Summit at the Royal York Hotel in downtown Toronto. The Canada Europe Roundtable for Business has served as the parallel business process from the launch to the conclusion of the CETA negotiations.
After it had been leaked by German public television on 14 August, the 1634 pages long Consolidated CETA text was published on the EU's official website on 26 September 2014.
Completion, translation of the final text into 24 EU languages, and ratification is expected to take years since the passage of the deal requires approval of the European Parliament and the European Council as well as Canada and the individual 27 EU member states as well.
Considerations and planning
The EU-Canada Trade Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA), a three-part study commissioned by the European Commission to independent experts and completed in September 2011, provided a comprehensive prediction on the impacts of CETA. It predicts a number of macro-economic and sector-specific impacts, suggesting the EU may see increases in real GDP of 0.02–0.03% in the long-term from CETA, whereas Canada may see increases of 0.18–0.36%; the Investment section of the report suggests these numbers could be higher when factoring in investment increases. At the sectoral level, the study predicts the greatest gains in output and trade to be stimulated by services liberalization and by the removal of tariffs applied on sensitive agricultural products; it also suggests CETA could have a positive social impact if it includes provisions on the ILO's Core Labour Standards and Decent Work Agenda. The study details a variety of impacts in various "cross-cutting" components of CETA: it advocates against controversial NAFTA-style ISDS provisions; predicts potentially imbalanced benefits from a government procurement (GP) chapter; assumes CETA will lead to an upward harmonization in IPR regulations, particularly changing Canadian IPR laws; and predicts impacts in terms of competition policy and several other areas.
The European Commission projected the treaty would lead to savings of just over half a billion euros in taxes for EU exporters every year, mutual recognition in regulated professions such as architects, accountants and engineers, and easier transfers of company staff and other professionals between the EU and Canada. The European Commission claims CETA will create a more level playing field between Canada and the EU on intellectual property rights.
Legal challenges
Germany
In Germany, a constitutional complaint made by more than 125,000 people had the Federal Constitutional Court (13 October 2016) examine whether its provisional applicability was compatible with the German Basic Law. The Federal Constitutional Court confirmed this in principle; however, the federal government must ensure
- that a Council decision on the provisional application will only include those areas of CETA that are undisputedly within the competence of the European Union,
- that until a decision by the Federal Constitutional Court is made, the main thing is that the decisions taken in the CETA Joint Committee will be adequately democratically linked, and that
- the interpretation of Art. 30.7 para. 3 letter c CETA enables a unilateral termination of the provisional application by Germany.
A ratification vote by the Bundestag and Bundesrat would not take place before the Federal Constitutional Court judgment as taken place. In March 2022, the court approved the provisional application of the agreement but indicated that provisions concerning arbitral tribunals might be unconstitutional.
In June 2022, Germany's governing coalition agreed to ratify the agreement after the noted provisions on arbitral tribunals are renegotiated and adjusted to address the concerns of the Federal Constitutional Court. The planned changes would not require renewed ratification of the agreement by all states.
In December 2022, the Bundestag and Bundesrat ratified the agreement. In January 2023, the ratification law entered into force.
Belgium
In September 2017, Belgium requested the opinion of the European Court of Justice on whether the dispute resolution system of CETA is compatible with EU law. The agreement could not come into force until the ECJ had given its opinion nor if the ECJ opinion were to be that CETA is incompatible with EU law.
On 30 April 2019, the European Court of Justice gave its opinion that the system for the resolution of disputes between investors and states in CETA is compatible with EU law.
Ireland
In September 2021, under Costello v. Government of Ireland, the Irish High Court rejected a challenge brought against ratification of the treaty by Green Party member of parliament, Patrick Costello.
The judge, Nuala Butler, found that CETA did not entail an unconstitutional transfer of the State's sovereignty. She also found that tribunals established by CETA would not have jurisdiction to declare any provision of Irish law invalid. In addition she found that it was constitutionally appropriate and permissible for the State to ratify the agreement without a referendum.
In January 2022, the Supreme Court allowed direct appeal of this judgment to itself, bypassing the Court of Appeal in a "leapfrog" appeal due to "significant issues" regarding state sovereignty and the administration of justice raised in the case. This appeal began being heard in March 2022.
In November 2022, the Supreme Court upheld the challenge, finding by a 4-3 majority that ratification of CETA would be unconstitutional as Irish law currently stands. The Court however also found that if amendments were made to existing Irish law, it would then be constitutional to ratify CETA. Specifically, amendments to the Arbitration Act of 2010 could be made by the Oireachtas without the need for a referendum to allow ratification without breaching the constitution.
In June 2026, the president of Ireland signed into law the Arbitration (Amendment) Act 2026, clearing the way for the ratification of CETA and other similar international agreements.
Visa disputes
The Czech Republic, Romania and Bulgaria had declared they would not endorse the agreement, in effect scuppering the entire agreement, until the visa requirements for their citizens entering Canada were lifted. All other EU countries already had visa free travel to Canada. Visas requirements were lifted for the Czech Republic on 14 November 2013. After giving a written undertaking to cancel visa requirements for Bulgarian and Romanian nationals visiting Canada for business and tourism, within a timeframe no later than the end of 2017, Canada lifted visa requirements for Bulgarian and Romanian citizens on 1 December 2017.
Current status
Canada and the EU have a long history of economic co-operation. Comprising 27 Member States with a total population of over 450 million and a GDP of €41.6 trillion in 2025, the European Union (EU) is the world's second largest single market, foreign investor and trader. As an integrated bloc, the EU represents Canada's second largest trading partner in goods and services. In 2024, Canadian goods and services exports to the EU totalled €48.3 billion and imports from the EU amounted to €76.3 billion.
According to Global Affairs Canada, the EU is also the second largest source of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Canada, with the stock of FDI amounting to C$194 billion at the end of 2024. In 2024, the stock of Canada's direct investment in the EU totalled C$297 billion, with Canadian companies generating 275,000 jobs in EU Member States. According to Eurostat, the EU identified Canada as its sixth largest destination and its fifth largest source of FDI in 2024.
As of 2026, CETA is provisionally in effect, with full ratification pending in 10 of the EU's 27 member states. In March 2026, in response to concerns about the impact of investor-state dispute mechanisms on state sovereignty and after designing a tribunal system in 2021, the CETA Joint Committee issued "relatively narrow interpretations of CETA’s investor protections" by clarifying the definitions of "fair and equitable treatment" and "indirect expropriation."
Accessions
Signature and ratification
It was initially unclear whether or not the EU member states would have to ratify the agreement, as the European Commission considered the treaty to be solely in the competence of the EU. However, in July 2016 it was decided that CETA be qualified as a "mixed agreement" and thus be ratified through national procedures as well.
Shortly before the scheduled signature of CETA on 27 October 2016, Belgium announced it was unable to sign the treaty, as assent was required by all regional governments. The federal government and Flanders, which were governed by the centre-right Michel and Bourgeois governments respectively, were in favour, whereas the German Community, French Community, Wallonia and Brussels, which were led by centre-left parties that were in opposition at the federal level, rejected the treaty. On 27 April 2016, the Walloon Parliament had already adopted a resolution in opposition to CETA. On 13 October 2016, David Lametti, then Canada's Justice Minister, defended CETA before a Walloon Parliament committee. However, the next day the Walloon Parliament affirmed its opposition. Walloon Minister-President Paul Magnette led the intra-Belgian opposition shortly before the planned signature.
The intra-Belgian disagreement was solved in the final days of October, paving the way for CETA's signature. On 28 October, the Belgian regional parliaments allowed Full Powers to be given to the federal government, and the following day Minister of Foreign Affairs Didier Reynders gave his signature on behalf of Belgium. The next day, on Sunday 30 October 2016, the treaty was signed by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, President of the European Council Donald Tusk, President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico (as Slovakia held the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2016).