The Walloons are not to be taken lightly. Belgium’s French-speaking self-governing southern region could stymie a decade-long effort to seal a Canada-EU trade deal.
Wallonia is Belgium’s Quebec, a French-speaking territory that accounts for over half of the country’s land and a third of its people. The majority of Dutch-speaking Flemish reside in Flanders, in the more prosperous north.
And while Belgium’s federal government supports the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), it needs its three regions to support it. Wallonia does not.
A senior European diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Canadian Press that the threat posed by the Walloons is the greatest obstacle to getting CETA done.
A summary of the free trade deal that was leaked recently aims to appease CETA opponents, sources say—notably the restive Walloons who are threatening to block the agreement.
The five-page summary is supposed to accompany the deal’s final signing later this month in Brussels.
Stamped “Final Draft,” it addresses contentious portions of CETA—including the investor-state dispute resolution mechanism—that were rewritten to save the deal from being rejected in Germany and France.
The Walloons must ultimately approve the deal for it to pass through the current process, which hinges on each EU member state supporting it.
