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MONTREAL — In a warehouse on the outskirts of town, European trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom surveyed rows of boxed-up electric bicycles bound for bike-share systems from Honolulu to Sao Paulo.

“I wouldn’t bother with the Netherlands,” she said to PBSC Urban Solutions’ CEO. “Too flat.”

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With freshly–inked deals in Spain and France, the Montreal-area provider of bike-sharing solutions exemplifies the possibilities of the year-old Canada-EU free trade accord.

Still, Malmstrom says a lack of awareness in Canada and a wave of anti-globalization nationalism abroad may be contributing to the country’s sluggish start to seizing opportunities in the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

“The biggest hurdle is that not enough companies are aware of its possibilities,” Malmstrom said in an interview Wednesday.

“And we have a wave of politically quite nationalistic governments and political parties in the European Union. We are trying to overcome that anti-globalization feeling — true feelings that people feel left behind in the economic crisis.