At its summit last week the European Union failed to reach agreement on the free trade deal with Canada (full name Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement,CETA). Bulgaria and Romania suspended their reserves for the agreement in exchange for guarantees from Canada that in 2017 it will abolish visas for their nationals. However, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker warned that there would be no lifting of visas without an agreement signed. Senior officials at EU contend that a signature is possible this week, because the resistance of the Belgian region of Wallonia was surmountable. By the way, according to Bulgarian PM Boyko Borissov this resistance is dangerous for EU, as boycotting common EU decisions by a single country or region could grow into a trend. Despite the pressure it has faced though, Wallonia seems adamant and has refuted today a few optimistic forecasts by rejecting the EU ultimatum to support CETA on 24 October at the latest.

In Bulgaria many still believe that accepting to support CETA in exchange for lifting Canadavisas is in fact the short end of the stick - an apparently unequal deal. The government however looks at the abolishment of visas as a guarantee of the equal treatment of Bulgarian businesses in the large-scale process of integration of the markets of Europe and Canada engineered by CETA.

The agreement was agreed in principle in October 2013, negotiations on it closed in August 2014 and its official presentation was in September 2014. The Bulgarian parliament though discussed the agreement for the first time as late as last July. The demands of the socialists to vote Bulgaria's stance in the plenary hall were rejected despite vocal rhetoric from the nationalists from Ataka about a national treachery and an upcoming death of the national economy. To cut a long story short, CETA and its possible consequences have not been properly discussed in the Bulgarian National Assembly. PM Borissov actually went to Brussels with hands untied, without a mandate from parliament on whatever different stance from “support for a visa-free regime with Canada” preliminary declared by him. Once the demand has been satisfied Bulgaria at least got something instead of nothing.

It is a paradox but it turns out that the positions of the political groups before and after the CETA signature have little importance. The ruling parties favor the agreement; it is even of use to DPS (the predominantly ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms) which is in opposition, and firmly against it are only the socialists and the nationalists from Ataka. On the other hand, the clauses of the agreement are made in a way that it is enforced automatically with its adoption though formally this enforcement is temporary. So, if in the process of its ratification the agreement is rejected by a given national parliament, it could be denounced by virtue of a new resolution of the European Council. A denouncement however is not expected because it would trigger an avalanche of court of arbitration lawsuits and no one loves this. There was resistance to CETA from other European countries as well but it has already been overcome. This is true of Bulgaria, and Wallonia's resistance is not expected to last long. The outcome of the issue seems clear and now the question is not whether the agreement will be signed but when. And by the way, the preliminary schedule until the end of the year has not been violated yet.

English Daniela Konstantinova