Wallonia Drops Its CETA Blockade

The Parliament of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, Belgium's French-speaking legislature, voted on 24 June 2026 to approve CETA, the EU-Canada trade agreement it helped hold up nearly a decade ago. For Malta, this is a useful reminder of how EU trade policy really works: a deal can reshape markets long before every parliament has given its full consent.

A deal that works before it's finished

CETA, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, removes tariffs on almost all goods traded between the EU and Canada, opens Canadian public procurement to European firms, and reduces barriers in services and investment (European Commission). Most of it has been provisionally applied since September 2017. Businesses are already using it. Treaty committees still meet; Canada scheduled a CETA Financial Services Committee session in Brussels for 23-24 June 2026.

The missing part is the Investment Court System, or ICS. This is a treaty-based tribunal allowing foreign investors to sue governments for compensation if a state breaches the investment protections promised under CETA. It gives cross-border companies a dedicated legal route, outside the ordinary national courts.

The ICS was kept out of provisional application because that part of the treaty remains under national control, not EU control alone. To switch it on, every EU country must ratify. In Belgium, ratification is not a single vote: the constitution shares treaty-making power between the federal state, three regions and three communities, each with its own parliament. CETA is a "mixed agreement", covering both EU and national competences, so Belgium needs consent from its sub-national legislatures too.

Who gains, who loses

That constitutional machinery would matter less if the politics were settled. They are not. Wallonia's parliament blocked the EU from even signing CETA in October 2016, and the split behind that stand-off remains visible.

Belgium's business federation AKT said firms had been waiting years for legal certainty. Exporters, logistics operators and companies large enough to compete for Canadian public contracts benefit from lower trade friction. For a small services economy such as Malta, this is the side of EU trade policy that usually looks familiar: market access, predictability, and rules that let smaller firms operate beyond their home market.

The other side is represented by Belgium's agricultural union FUGEA, which urged deputies to reject CETA. Its concern is that Canadian beef and pork entering through tariff-rate quotas, meaning fixed volumes admitted at reduced tariffs, put unfair pressure on livestock farmers already working on tight margins.

Both arguments have weight. Lower tariffs and procurement access are already helping firms able to use them. The investor-protection machinery, the part most contested by farmers and sovereignty critics, still depends on parliaments that may never align.

Belgium is not the bottleneck alone

The same problem appears elsewhere in Europe, though through different constitutional routes. France's Constitutional Council cleared CETA in 2017, but the French Senate rejected ratification in March 2024 after objections over agriculture and sovereignty. The Netherlands approved CETA in its lower house, but the Senate has not completed the process. In Ireland, a Sinn Féin MEP sued the government over legislation passed to help ratification.

The EU's Court of Justice has ruled that the ICS is compatible with EU law. That settles the legal question at EU level. It does not settle the political one: foreign investors would gain a legal channel that local firms and citizens do not have.

There is no single public EU tracker confirming exactly how many member states have fully ratified CETA as of June 2026. France's Senate rejection has no clear path to resolution. The Dutch and Irish processes remain open. Belgium may still need further internal steps beyond this week's vote.

The EU can negotiate trade agreements and apply most of their commercial effects for years. Tariffs fall, procurement markets open, and services move more freely. The most sensitive legal protections, especially those allowing foreign investors to sidestep national courts, still depend on dozens of parliaments across 27 countries. Companies trade under CETA today. Whether they ever get the full treaty remains a question too large for any one parliament to settle.