STRASBOURG, 8 a.m. (2 a.m. ET) -- We are leaving Strasbourg this morning and returning to Brussels for meetings with European allies opposing CETA. We will be meeting with the European Public Services Union, Friends of the Earth Europe, Corporate Europe Observatory, Food and Water Europe, and others. Many of these European civil society groups just signed on to a statement of opposition to CETA which can be read on the front-page of http://www.S2Bnetwork.org or at http://www.s2bnetwork.org/fileadmin/dateien/downloads/EU-Canada_statemen.... This statement represents a significant step in building trans-Atlantic opposition to this trade agreement. We will be discussing next steps, including actions in Ottawa during the seventh round of talks on April 11-15.

STRASBOURG, 3 p.m. (9 a.m. ET) -- We have just completed our meeting with MEP Joe Higgins. He is a member of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, which holds 35 seats. He is also a member of the European Parliament's Committee on International Trade.

We raised with him some of the many concerns we have with CETA including: its facilitation of water privatization, tar sands expansion, investor rights over the public interest, seed patents that hurt farmers, increased pharmaceutical costs, and job loss.

Brussels - Today we met with Irish MEP Joe Higgins of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left.

It was a very good meeting in which Mr. Higgins highlighted the importance of popular mobilization in both Europe and Canada to defeat CETA.

We will also be working with his office to submit questions to the European Commission about CETA and the very real threat water privatization.

We also spoke to Mr. Higgins about coming to Canada to address our rally against CETA outside where the fifth round of talks will take place in Ottawa this coming October.

Brent Patterson, Director of Campaigns and Communications, Council of Canadians
www.canadians.org

January will be a busy month for neoliberals. Canadian trade negotiators head to Brussels this week for a sixth round of Canada-EU free trade negotiations (January 17 to 21). Then CEOs and world leaders will cruise on over to Davos for skiing and pedicures at the World Economic Forum (January 26 to 30), which overlaps with a serious attempt to put the WTO back on track in Geneva. After a brief period of second-guessing the laissez-faire capitalism that precipitated the 2007/08 crash, developed and "emerging" economies have headed straight back to the Kool-Aid of trade liberalization. The Canadian government never stopped drinking, which is the only explanation why they're in such a rush to sign CETA.

On Monday afternoon we met with provincial negotiators from Ontario, Manitoba and Nova Scotia at the European Management Centre, a non-descript office building in Brussels where the CETA negotiations are taking place. We raised with them:

1- our concerns with how a NAFTA Chapter 11-like investor-state provision in CETA could be used to challenge government policies in the public interest, notably environmental policies, see http://www.canadians.org/campaignblog/?p=3233 and http://www.canadians.org/campaignblog/?p=305;

2- our opposition to water and sanitation services being included in the ‘offers' round of talks scheduled for this April 11-15 in Ottawa, see http://www.canadians.org/campaignblog/?p=5761 and http://www.canadians.org/campaignblog/?p=5828;

The sixth round of Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) negotiations - the second last scheduled before the deal is to be signed at the end of this year - are set to begin Monday January 17 in Brussels, Belgium.

The Council of Canadians will be there to voice our concerns about CETA - a deal the Harper government boasts to be larger in scope than NAFTA - and its impact on water privatization, tar sands expansion, reduced public policy-setting rights (through local procurement restrictions and an investor-state provision), and much more (including projected job losses and increased pharmaceutical costs that would further burden our public health care system).