Lorenzo Codogno, former chief economist and director general at the Italian Treasury Department, raised concerns following threats from the Italian government that they intended to block the trade deal.
In a shock warning, Mr Codogno said: “If Italy blows up such an important international treaty as the CETA, while the world is leaning towards protectionism, it would produce shock waves in Brussels and EU national capitals, and make Italy isolated in many other important areas.
“It would likely damage Italy more than others, given the sizeable trade surplus with Canada.”
The former official noted that Canada accounted for €64.3 billion (£57.4 billion) of trade with the EU in 2016, representing two percent of the bloc’s overall trade and 9.6 percent for Canada.
The value of Italian exports to Canada amounts to €5.1 billion (£4.55 billion), with a €3.2 billion (£2.86 billion) trade surplus with the North American nation.
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Over 13,000 Italian businesses are also engaged in trade with Canadian organisations.
The potential trade deal, which has already been approved by the European Parliament, needs to be ratified by the EU27 member states through national procedures.
Countries including Latvia, Denmark, Spain, Croatia, Czech Republic, Portugal and Lithuania have already ratified the agreement.
However resistance was mounted in Italy by the Italian associated of farmers, who believe the deal will not sufficiently protect the country’s food specialities.
Italy’s Agriculture Minister Gian Marco Centinaio expressed his opposition to the agreement in June and raised concerns that Italy would veto the deal.
He said: “We won’t ratify the free trade agreement with Canada because it only protects a small part of our PDO (protected designation of origin) and PGI (protected geographical indication products).
“We will ask the parliament not to ratify the treaty and the others similar to CETA.”
Mr Codogno noted that if the Italian parliament were to vote down the agreement, they would “effectively veto the treaty”.
Mr Centinaio has nevertheless softened his position in regards to the trade deal since his explosive statements in June, and stated that Italy is in no rush to immediately reject the deal.
Speaking to reporters in Brussels this week, he said: “Nobody is in a hurry to bring CETA to the chamber.
“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.”