Mr. David O'Sullivan:

Absolutely, but I just wanted to explain that we are in a rather unique situation relative to others. Canada has had its scrutiny and its parliamentary vote and it ratified the agreement in May 2017. We are in the unusual situation that the trading partner must negotiate with the Commission, backed up by the member states, and there must then be a unanimous vote of the member states in the Council, where each government votes and presumably has also checked back with its parliament or parliamentary majority. There has to be a vote in the European Parliament but then we say to the trading partner that we also have to go through national ratification, which involves 40 parliaments. If that becomes a further round of negotiation it will, frankly, be very difficult to persuade people to engage with us because they may feel the process is just endless. That is why it is very important that the political discussion and the democratic transparency of the process of negotiating these agreements happen at the moment we decide to sign and when the European Parliament decides to approve it. If we then have to go back to all these parliaments at the national level and open the possibility that there might be a new negotiation or new issues raised, it becomes very difficult to manage. No other trading partner in the world has a similar system.

Of course, all our trading partners that are democratic have their governments, parliaments and accountability but they do not have a further layer of lower national-level ratification with the potential to reopen certain issues which have been decided with great difficulty. That is the issue. I have full respect for national parliaments and for the system as it is now but that was one of the things that may have led the European Court of Justice to suggest there may be ways of minimising the number of trade deals, or the matter within them, that need to go for full national ratification. That would be a better system, including for national parliaments because they could have their say at an earlier stage and would not find themselves constantly required to revisit the same territory in a further phase.