Free trade with Europe ‘in a coma,’ acccording to U of T political scientist

October 24, 2016

European and Canadian politicians and diplomats are scrambling this week to salvage a trade agreement that was supposed to be signed Thursday, but which is now in doubt because of the objections of Wallonia, a francophone region in Belgium. If ratified by Canada and the European Union, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) would open up markets and drop nearly all import taxes on everything from food to cars to metal and forestry products. U of T News spoke to Stefan Renckens, an assistant professor of political science at U of T Scarborough, about the collapse of the trade agreement. Renckens has a master’s degree from the University of Leuven in Belgium and worked there as a research and teaching assistant at the Institute for International and European Policy and as a research fellow of the Flemish Research Foundation before moving to North America. The full article is available here.