EU and Canada agree on trade pact Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, said "The difficult points are now agreed, and now it's just a matter of technically finishing the agreement" The EU and Canada have agreed in principle on a long-delayed trade and investment pact in a breakthrough that Brussels hopes will serve as a stepping stone towards a more ambitious transatlantic deal. Karel De Gucht, the EU trade commissioner, said Friday's agreement with Canada contained several novel arrangements for contentious issues such as maritime transport and geographical indications that he hoped would be repeated in talks between Brussels and Washington. "Of course, this will influence discussions with the US, and we see it as a template," Mr De Gucht said, although he added that Washington might react otherwise. EU officials said the Canada deal also provided "hard evidence" that Europe could strike an ambitious trade pact without watering down consumer and environmental standards. The agreement will give Canada access to a market larger than the North American Free Trade Agreement, and fulfils a longstanding goal of building trade links beyond the US. "This is not just a big deal - it is a very, very positive deal for Canada," said Stephen Harper, Canada's prime minister. For the EU, the agreement with a mature economy that is a member of the Group of Eight nations will build confidence as negotiations with the US towards a much larger transatlantic trade agreement get under way. The EU-Canada agreement required four years of negotiation and previewed some of the same thorny issues that will confront the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, including Europe's aversion to GMOs and Canadian beef producers" demands for greater market access. We expect this agreement to set some standards for other negotiations, including with our . . . United States friends. This is critically important," said José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president. Although the two sides acknowledged there were still some elements of the package that were not yet complete, both Mr Harper and Mr Barroso expressed confidence it would be adopted. A final agreement requires both support from Canada's provinces as well as the EU's 28 member states and the European parliament. "The difficult points are now agreed, and now it's just a matter of technically finishing the agreement," Mr Barroso said. I expect member states to agree. The talks appeared deadlocked over the summer but there was a breakthrough this week when Canada agreed to more than double the tariff-free quotas for European cheese, and the EU, in turn, expanded access for fresh meat. The Canadian concession, in particular, appears to have angered the country's dairy farmers, who are influential in provincial politics. With TTIP talks set to intensify later this year, EU officials were keen to highlight elements of the Canada deal they hope will be replicated. In particular, they succeeded at winning greater access to government tenders - including in Canadian provinces. The EU also won recognition for its system of geographical indications, which is meant to limit the marketing of products such as champagne and feta cheese that do not originate from those regions. Products already on the Canadian market will be exempted from geographical indications, but any new ones may have to adopt qualifiers such as "-type" or "-style" to comply with the rules. David Cameron, the UK prime minister, welcomed the deal, and urged the EU to step up negotiations with the US. Today the EU has delivered its largest free trade agreement ever and proved that it can be an asset for British business. The deal will inject £1.3bn to the UK economy, boost exports by almost a third and create thousands of new jobs," Mr Cameron said. Nicole Bricq, France's trade minister, issued a more tepid response, saying her government would take a decision "after a thorough examination" of the deal and warning that its details - particularly for agriculture - "do not serve as a precedent for the negotiation with the US."