Italy could derail landmark EU-Canada trade deal – and it’s all because of cheese

The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which was negotiated in 2014, will do away with 98 percent of the tariffs between the bloc and Canada if ratified by all 28 member states.

However, just if just one of them fails to do so, it could put the whole deal in jeopardy.

In a statement issued yesterday, the Italian farmers’ lobby Coldiretti blasted Canada for producing versions of Italian cheese and using their geographical names, impacting Italy’s exports.

The statement said: “Exports of Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano to Canada dropped by 10 percent in value and 6 percent in quantity in the first quarter of the year 2018 compared to the previous year.”

The amount of all dairy products exported to Canada overall fell by two percent in the first quarter of 2018 compared with the same period last year, according to Coldiretti calculations.

The statement added: “In the first three months of 2018 3 million kilos of fake Parmigiano Reggiano (Parmesan) were produced in Canada, 2.3 million local ricotta, 970 thousand kilos of Provolone taroccato without forgetting that there are even 36.1 million chili mozzarella and 68 thousand pounds of an unidentified Friulian cheese, which certainly has nothing to do with the region more to the north east of Italy.”

The whole thing could come to a head if Italian MPs decide to force a vote on the issue.

Italian agricultural minister Gian Marco Centinaio explained: “We want to understand with concrete data whether CETA is really advantageous for our country.

“We have the impression that it is not. We do not have other data.

“We have assumptions, mostly perceptions from firms, mainly from the agriculture sector.”

However, speaking before a meeting of EU agriculture ministers in Brussels, Mr Centinaio stressed no date had been set for a parliamentary debate and that the government had not so far discussed the matter.

He added: “Nobody is in a hurry to bring CETA to the chamber.”

According to the EU statistics office Eurostat, Italian goods exports to Canada have increased by 2.1 percent year-on-year in the eight months since CETA provisionally entered into force and its food and animal exports by 11.9 percent.

Of the 28 European Union countries, Italy has the most food products with PDO, or Protected Designation of Origin, and PGI, or Protected Geographical Indication, labels.

These include Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and Prosciutto di Parma ham. Under CETA, Canada has recognised more than 40 Italian PDO and PGI labels out of a total of over 200.

Mr Centinaio said he wanted to check whether those not covered were exclusively local products and therefore unlikely to be exported to Canada. If that was not the case, Italy could push to add more.

Italy is not the first country to come into conflict with the EU over cheese.

In January, Denmark was warned about exporting cheese branded as “feta” outside the bloc.

According to EU regulations, only the Greek variety can be labelled as feta, defined as as a brined cheese made in Greece from sheep milk, sometime mixed with up to 30 percent of goat’s milk.