Wallonia's veto in trade deal about everything but Canada: Don Pittis

Everyone calls it the Canada-EU trade deal, but in almost every way, European opposition toCETAreally isn't about Canada at all.

Understanding the motivation and thedisproportionateclout of Belgium's French-speaking region that stands in the way of the dealrequires some understanding of the strange politics of a country more divided along linguistic lines than Canada.

• Hope remains for CETA, although Belgium's Walloon region still opposes trade pact
• EU sets Belgium Monday deadline to back CETA

"Of course there are no hostile feelings against Canada in Belgium, especially not in French-speakingWallonia," says political scholar MarcHooghefrom Belgium's ancient university town ofLeuven.

Like Canada, but different

My family lived in Belgium for a year, and while the country is often compared to Canada because of its bilingual and bicultural history, it quickly became apparent to us that the differences were dramatic.

Now, as the French-speaking part of the country,Wallonia, throws up what seems to be an impenetrable roadblock to a Canada-Europe trade deal seven years in the making, those differences are at the heart of their overwhelming power to stop the deal in its tracks.

Beginning to understand Belgium requires a bit of history.

At the start of the last century, French-speakers ruled the roost inBelgium. French was the language of politics, of education, of high culture.

Blessed with coal,iron, and an industrious workforce,Walloniawas the country's industrial heartland, its capital French-speaking Brussels.

Extreme split

But by the 1960s that had changed. As the power of metal-bashing industries began to fade, Belgium saw a cultural shift not unlike Quebec's Quiet Revolution, but the group standing up to demand their rights were not French-speakers, but theDutch-speaking citizens of the northern, Flemish, part of the country.

When the split came, it was extreme. The country was divided in three. Populous Brussels, though traditionally French, became a bilingual national capital region ruled half and half by French and Dutch speakers.

Outside Brussels, the Flemish north (traditionally called Flanders in English) was declared strictly Dutch-speaking. The French-speakingsouthadopted thetraditional regional nameWallonia, with its own parliament in the beautiful fortress city ofNamur.

During our stay, my wife was associated with now Dutch-speaking Leuven. But to send our child to school in French we had to live south of the linguistic dotted line near Louvain-la-Neuve, the newly built French-speaking university town.

Suddenly the tables were turned. The down-trodden Flemish became the country's technologicalelite, with close links to booming Holland and Germany. Its modern port cities werehubs of European trade.

Wallonia was left with strong trade unions and high unemployment, says Canadian scholar Daniel Bland, who has studied Belgian federalism.

"Wallonia is more the old left, the traditional working-class left," says Bland,Canada chair in public policy at the University of Saskatchewan. "Of course this type of left is influential in other countries in Europe, but in Wallonia it rules."

Just as in parts of the U.S. Donald Trump's anti-trade message has connected, in economicallydepressed regions like Walloniavoters don'tsee trade deals as a good thing,Bland says.

Almost absurd

And that matters, because in Belgiumimportant national deals, including this one, need the support of both regional legislatures. Almost absurdly, the party that holds veto power in Walloniais not part of the government in Brussels.

"For several decades in a row, the Francophone Socialist Party was part of the ruling coalition at the central level," says Bland. "But now they are no longer part of that coalition so there is a sense that they have lost some of their clout, at least at the federal level."

At the University of Ottawa, AndrLecourshas been studying Belgium for nearly two decades. He says the French-speakingsocialists feel like a powerless minority and soare glad to exercisethat veto power.

"InWalloniathis is described as a treaty that will serve the interest of Flemings much better than Walloons and they're probably right," saysLecours.

In Leuven, Marc Hooghe agrees.

"Even now, if you look at where do multinational corporations go if they want to invest in Belgium, they have a clear preference for the northern Dutch-speaking region," says Hooghe, pointing to Bombardier's operation near Bruges. The ports are in the north, he says, the trade unions are not as strong, and education levels are higher.

A bigger struggle

In that way, he says, the Walloon'sveto is part of a domestic struggle between Belgium's two linguisticcommunities.

But it's also about the coming U.S.-Europe trade deal. The Francophone Socialist Party is the champion of anti-free trade thinking that continues to exist in opposition parties across the continent and in Canada. Its veto gives it a say that other hard left parties no longer have.

"(They fear that) this gives way to abandoning all our socialist priorities in Europe," says Hooghe, who says the real objection is to giant corporations using trade deals like CETA and its U.S.-Europe equivalent TTIP, now under negotiation, to overwhelm European values.

"Both have been combined into this monster of free trade, getting rid of all environmental standards, all social standards," he says. "CETA is being sacrificed to stop TTIP."

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