102 / 169
THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
102
creating new trade alliances, making it a priority
to close or renew various trade deals, thereby
shoring up the free trade system, now rechris-
tened free and fair trade. The matter has ac-
quired the utmost political importance in the
period as one of the pillars of globalisation, along
with finance and technological transformation.
The shift toward building a new European trade
model is now on the front line of the EU’s exter-
nal action, particularly with the partners with
which it shares values.
The Comprehensive Economic and Trade
Agreement with Canada (CETA) was signed at
the end of 2016 and took provisional effect in
September 2017, pending ratification by the 27
national parliaments. Now the main task that
lies ahead is ensuring it is executed appropri-
ately and rigorously. The European Parliament
and the national parliaments should exercise
strict supervision over its implementation in
terms of social and environmental standards
and of the mechanism for resolving conflicts be-
tween states and investors. With regard to the
renewal of the Global Agreement with Mexico,
the European side has strived to keep the bar
high on the standards mentioned above, there-
by shaping an alternative model to the NAFTA
with Canada and the United States and, possi-
bly, building bridges with the new Mexican ad-
ministration after the presidential elections of
July 2018 – at a time when the polls were tip-
ping the candidate López Obrador, a left-wing
populist. In March 2018, after nine rounds of
talks, there were still sensitive aspects to settle,
including the technical obstacles to trade, state-
owned companies or subsidies. The date of the
final signing remained uncertain. With regard to
Mercosur, the EU’s main trade partner, negotia-
tions restarted to seal a free trade deal pending
since 1999 and picked up again in May 2016.
The new international situation and the new
European priorities, as well as the political mo-
mentum provided by Argentine President
Mauricio Macri, have been a huge help in break-
ing the initial deadlock. However, expectations
of a final agreement by early 2018 were not
met, owing to the lack of agreement on issues
such as ethanol, the automobile sector and the
agriculture and fishing sector. It seemed clear
that to reach a final agreement it would be nec-
essary to maintain a high political beat that ena-
bles driving a hard bargain in the negotiations.
Finally, on the Asian front, as a means of diver-
sifying in the face of an America in withdrawal
and a China in expansion, the EU sealed the
Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with
Japan in December 2017, with a view to reduc-
ing the chronic trade deficit with the country
and saving European firms some 1 billion euros
in tariffs.
Global governance of climate change
The EU has found a new badge of identity in this
period in the global climate change agenda. It
stood firm in the face of the TrumpAdministration
in what is one of its greatest diplomatic achieve-
ments to date: the Paris Agreement of December
2015. An overwhelming majority of countries in
the international community agreed on a sub-
stantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Now that countries such as Nicaragua and Syria
have said they would join the agreement, the
United States’ isolation is even more evident.
It could be said that Trump’s announcement
that he was taking America out of the agree-
ment in June 2017 served as incentive for even
greater European leadership in the field. The EU
renewed this huge triumph of its global action
two years later, in December 2017, at a fresh
climate change summit also held in Paris a