OTTAWA: The European Union and Canada have re-affirmed their determination to continue joint efforts to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic in keeping with shared principles and values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law, and based on the EU-Canada Strategic Partnership Agreement.
At a Leaders’ Virtual Meeting, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, shared the commitment to take effective measures to protect health, ensure a robust economic recovery, and build more innovative, sustainable, inclusive and resilient economies.
Trudeau later tweeted: “By working together, Canada and the EU can emerge from this crisis stronger than before. “Charles Michael, Von Der Leyen and I spoke today about our responses and the work we need to do to fight climate change, increase trade, protect human rights, and build resilient economies.”
The leaders celebrated the third anniversary of the provisional application of the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and welcomed its positive results, noting that bilateral trade between the EU and Canada had, by end of 2019 increased by more than 20% for goods and for services over pre-CETA levels.
The leaders committed to continuing to work closely together in international fora including the G7, the G20, and the United Nations system.
Since the start of the pandemic, the EU and Canada have been cooperating closely, including to ensure universal, equitable and affordable access to COVID-19 vaccines, treatments and tests.
In this regard, the EU and Canada, alongside other donors, co-hosted a pledging event for the ACT-Accelerator and continue to collaborate to build support for the global initiative, in particular its COVAX Facility, through high-level engagement.
Both sides will continue to provide joint leadership in strengthening the World Health Organization, and the global pandemic preparedness and response capacity more generally.
The EU and Canada are implementing the G20 Action Plan agreed by Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors to support the global economic recovery. They also stressed the need to make global supply chains more resilient and improve the global level playing field while maintaining open economies.
They welcomed G20 efforts to support the most affected low-income countries, including in
Africa, including by the extension of the G20/Paris Club Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI).
On the environment, the leaders reaffirmed their commitment to the swift, full and effective implementation of the Paris Agreement and to their shared objective of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Leaders underlined their commitment to move towards the circular economy, and called for a global agreement to protect and restore biodiversity at the next Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in 2021 and for a strengthened global framework for sound management of chemicals and waste, at the International Conference on Chemicals Management in 2021.
They highlighted the close collaboration, underpinned by shared values, on ensuring a human-centric digital transformation.
They noted ongoing planning for joint research in Quantum technologies. As founding members of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI), the EU and Canada collaborate across multilateral fora to ensure AI and other digital technologies are advanced in a responsible manner that fosters public trust.
The leaders agreed to continue working together, in the Ottawa Group and beyond, to reform the World Trade Organization (WTO) and also discussed and agreed upon a range of foreign policy and security issues, including in relation to Belarus, Russia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Eastern Mediterranean, China, Sahel and Venezuela.
On China, the EU and Canada expressed their deep concern about the continued arbitrary detention thereof Canadians, EU and other foreign nationals.