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By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said today that the European Union would not include national parliaments of EU member states in the final decision on the Canada-EU Trade Agreement (CETA). Juncker’s CETA statement was made during the post-Brexit meeting of EU heads of state in Brussels today (28 June), several German newspapers reported quoting the German News Agency (DPA).

A link to the story in German is here.

With the remark Juncker confirmed earlier reports that CETA will be ratified as a unilateral EU agreement, not a so-called mixed agreement. Agreements that cover issues beyond common market policies, for example foreign policy issues, are regularly co-signed by both the Commission and the member states, due to the shared competencies.

Juncker according to the DPA said that national parliaments are not the only source of democratic control, and that such thinking would weaken the EU. But a major rationale could be concerns that CETA could be voted down in one of the remaining 27 parliaments.

Critics like Sven Giegold, Green Party member in the European Parliament, warned against rushing CETA by preventing the national parliaments of member states from weighing in. With CETA much broader in scope than the EU trade deal with Korea, a unilateral EU ratification is impossible, the chair of the International Trade Committee in the Euoprean Parliament, Bernd Lange (Socialists & Democrats) cautioned earlier this month.

The Commission is seeking to route around controversy over the trade deal, but Lange underlined that member states could still decide that CETA was a mixed agreement. To do so, member states have to take that decision unanimously, he explained.

If member states cannot agree, the European Parliament will have the last word over CETA later this year.