Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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597. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the areas of public procurement which have been explicitly excluded from the application of CETA for Canada and for the EU (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [28133/16]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) is a comprehensive free trade agreement that will remove tariffs between the EU and Canada and will create sizeable new market access opportunities in services and investment. CETA represents a modern high standard agreement which has the ability to set a new global standard for Trade Agreements. It will end limitations in access to public contracts, open up markets for services and offer predictable conditions for investors. CETA will save on duty costs as 99.6% of all industrial tariffs will be eliminated on entry into force. Irish firms will also benefit from the recognition of product standards and certification, thus saving on ‘double testing’ on both sides of the Atlantic. These are some of the benefits of the trade deal with Canada as well as providing new market opportunities in many sectors for Irish firms.

Chapter nineteen in CETA on Government Procurement will eliminate the asymmetry between the EU and Canada, given that the EU procurement market is already de facto open to Canadians, including at the sub-federal level, while in Canada the access for EU firms is very limited. This will not require any change in practice, and leaves the existing procedural framework as set out in the EU procurement Directives intact.

For the first time, Canadian provinces, territories and municipalities will open their procurement markets to a third country, going well beyond what Canada has offered in the GPA (the multilateral Government Procurement Agreement) or under NAFTA (the North America Free Trade Agreement). Canada’s provincial procurement market is estimated to be double the size of its federal equivalent.

In accordance with the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), sovereign governments have the right to organise public services and institutions as they see fit. CETA preserves the right of the EU and its Member States to maintain existing or adopt, new or more restrictive, measures in the future for the areas or sectors specified in the Annex II reservations of the agreement. These reservations include public monopolies and the exclusive rights of public utilities at all levels of government and public services such as health, education, water supply and public services.

The full text of CETA, including the Annexes and reservations, is publically available on the EU Commission’s website at -

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