What changed between the draft committee report and the plenary report

Change 13

Changed:12.21. Welcomes the concrete efforts to facilitate access to public procurement, such as the Single Point of Access in Canada; takes the view that even if many more EU businesses are successfully participating in Canadian tenders, such as for regional rail passenger transport in Ontario or bridges in Montreal, EU suppliers could take even further advantage of the opportunities offered, in particular as regards infrastructure projects and bidding for provincial and municipal contracts;

Change 14

Changed:13.22. Calls on the parties to make available all the legal and administrative support and tools SMEs need to engage in trade and investment under CETA, in order to foster an increase in exchanges and to enhance participation so they can reap the benefits of CETA, including through active measures to facilitate the internationalisation of SMEs, simplify procedures and address technical barriers to trade that disproportionately affect SMEs; welcomes, in this regard, the recommendation on SMEs adopted by the Joint Committee in 2018, and the subsequent action plans, including concrete actions such as the launch of the Access2Markets platform in October 2020, which supports SMEs with practical information on trade agreements and trade barriers; expects the expost evaluation to provide data on the evolution of the share of trade between EU and Canada carried out by SMEs; calls on the Parties to contemplate the possibility of a fully fledged chapter on SMEs analogous to those in the agreements with New Zealand and Chile;

Change 15

Removed:14. Encourages both parties to continue their outreach activities, in particular focusing on SMEs, to raise awareness about the opportunities offered by CETA through targeted information campaigns, while ensuring that the benefits of the agreement are shared equally between men and women;

Added:23. Given the importance of the social and solidarity economy sector in Canada and the action plan for the social economy adopted by the Commission on 9 December 2021, calls on the Joint Committee to identify what concrete measures could be put in place to promote more cooperation between social and solidarity actors across the Atlantic;

Removed:15. Welcomes the adoption of the recommendation on Trade and Gender by the CETA Joint Committee as early as 2018, which includes a commitment to share methods and procedures for the collection of gender disaggregated data, the use of indicators, monitoring and evaluation methodologies, and the analysis of gender-focused statistics related to trade; takes the view that the work carried out under the jointly adopted action plan can serve as an example for other trade agreements, even when there are no dedicated chapters on trade and gender in the agreement itself; encourages the Commission to publish more easily accessible gender disaggregated data on the usage of the agreement;

Added:24. Encourages both parties to continue their outreach activities, in particular focusing on SMEs and on Social and Solidarity Economy actors, to raise awareness about the opportunities offered by CETA through targeted information campaigns, while ensuring that the benefits of the agreement are shared equally between men and women;

Removed:16. Underlines that CETA provides a framework that fosters both trade and climate action by including commitments to cooperate on trade-related environmental issues of common interest such as climate change, as demonstrated by the recommendation on trade, climate action and the Paris Agreement; welcomes the growth of the environmental goods trade by 27 % since provisional application started;

Added:25. Welcomes the adoption of the recommendation on Trade and Gender by the CETA Joint Committee as early as 2018, which includes a commitment to share methods and procedures for the collection of gender disaggregated data, the use of indicators, monitoring and evaluation methodologies, and the analysis of gender-focused statistics related to trade; underlines that trade should benefit all, and specifically strengthen women’s economic empowerment; strongly encourages the CETA Joint Committee to continue monitoring the impacts of the agreement on gender; takes the view that the work carried out under the jointly adopted action plan can serve as an example for other trade agreements, even when there are no dedicated chapters on trade and gender in the agreement itself; recalls Parliament’s resolution on the Gender Action Plan III and encourages the Commission to publish more easily accessible gender disaggregated data on the usage of the agreement, particularly in relation to the chapters on public procurement and on trade and labour;

Removed:17. Welcomes the active involvement and monitoring of CETA implementation by the domestic advisory groups (DAGs) and the Civil Society Forum, gathering hundreds of representatives from across the EU and Canada, including businesses, environmental and labour organisations, civil society, academia as well as indigenous people’s representatives from Canada, and actively contributing to the work of in particular the Trade and Sustainable Development Committee through their joint statements;

Added:26. Calls on the Commission to prevent the precautionary principle from being weakened as a basic principle of the European Union enshrined in the Treaties and a guarantor of the protection of European farmers and citizens; highlights the importance of promoting the precautionary principle in all aspects of trade and ensuring its application, while avoiding unjustified barriers to trade;

Removed:18. Insists on the effective implementation of the specific commitments related to the trade and sustainable development (TSD) provisions, which are an integral part of CETA and are essential to the accomplishment of the objectives set; takes note that in 2024 the Commission will conduct an ex post evaluation of CETA, including its TSD chapter, involving independent experts;

Added:27. Underlines that CETA provides a framework that fosters both trade and climate action by including commitments to cooperate on trade-related environmental issues of common interest such as climate change, as demonstrated by the recommendation on trade, climate action and the Paris Agreement, notably with the promotion of clean technologies; underlines the importance of Canadian-based global power production accelerating the clean energy transition by producing energy from renewable resources; welcomes the growth of the environmental goods trade by 27 % since provisional application started; notes, however, that Canada has considered elements of European legislative and non-legislative initiatives with regard to the European Green Deal as technical barriers to trade; invites the Parties to find synergies with the implementation of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and other initiatives in the EU, and to jointly support work to develop joint or comparable carbon emissions methodologies at international level;

Removed:19. Calls on the parties to review CETA in order to introduce a suitable and effective dispute settlement mechanism, including the consideration of, among various enforcement methods, sanctions as a deterrent to be used, as a last resort, in the case of serious breaches;

Added:28. Welcomes the launch of the EU-Canada Digital Partnership as a key enabler of the green and digital transitions; calls on both parties to strengthen their cooperation in the framework of CETA implementation on issues of strategic mutual interest such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and the fight against disinformation;

Removed:20. Urges Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland and Slovenia to ratify CETA, as this will also be essential in order to update the agreement, and reiterates the importance of full application of CETA, including its investment protection provisions;

Added:29. Welcomes the active involvement and monitoring of CETA implementation by the DAGs and the Civil Society Forum, which gathers hundreds of representatives from across the EU and Canada, including businesses, environmental and labour organisations, civil society, academia as well as indigenous peoples’ representatives from Canada, and actively contributing to the work of in particular the Trade and Sustainable Development (TSD) Committee through their joint statements; urges the Commission and the TSD Board to follow up on their proposals; stresses that the mandate of the DAGs should also be to consider the sustainability impact of the full agreement; underlines the value of including considerations about the impact on sustainability and human rights of the investment protection chapter in their work;

Added:30. Calls on both parties to ensure better integration of small-scale farmers and consumers in the DAGs in the context of the renewal of these groups;

Added:31. Insists on the effective implementation of the specific commitments related to the TSD provisions, including the early TSD review committed to in the Joint Interpretative Instrument, which has not been forthcoming, as integral parts of CETA and essential to the accomplishment of the objectives set; takes note that in 2024, the Commission will conduct an ex post evaluation of CETA, including its TSD chapter, involving independent experts, which will be an opportunity to assess it against the Commission’s new approach of June 2022 and to consider taking on board concrete proposals put forward by Canada in 2020 to give a more binding scope to certain provisions of this chapter; recalls that the Joint Committee can provide a binding decision establishing implementation roadmaps to strengthen cooperation in areas where the ex post evaluation would identify shortcomings and expects them to actively do so; believes that efforts targeting better implementation of the TSD chapter or its review should be preceded by a meaningful consultation of all stakeholders;

Added:32. Notes that the UK ceased to be a member of the European Union following the provisional application of CETA; notes that the UK and Canada have agreed a series of bilateral trading arrangements to take account of this, including with regards to TRQ use and cumulation; notes that some of these agreements will cease to apply after 2024, which may present minor disruptions to established supply chains; calls on the Commission to explore the possibility for new agreements where these disruptions may negatively affect Union economic operators;

Added:33. Calls on the parties to review CETA, once ratified, making use of the review clause, in order to introduce a suitable and effective dispute settlement mechanism for the TSD, including the consideration of, among various enforcement methods, sanctions as a deterrent to be used, as a last resort, in the case of serious breaches; highlights its wish to contemplate institutionalising the ongoing cooperation on trade and gender in this review; stresses that this review should consider introducing specific strong provisions on the rights of indigenous peoples, including International Labour Organization Convention No. 169 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; (Ex AM 120 (Or. EN) of FdR INTA\AM\1289\1289241EN.docx)

Added:34. Urges Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland and Slovenia to swiftly ratify CETA, as this will also be essential in order to update the agreement, and reiterates the importance of full application of CETA, including its investment protection provisions;

35. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission, and to the Government and Parliament of Canada.

Change 16

Added:16.11.2023