latest on CETA progress

Last week, Steve Verheul, Canada's chief negotiator for CETA, held a teleconference to update civil society on the progress of the CETA talks.  The sixth negotiating round was held in Brussels, and some good progress was made on market access, regulatory barriers, government procurement, and some progress was made on dispute settlement and geographic indications (!). 

However, less progress was made in the auto trade, agriculture, rules of origin and dealing with commodities ...

and, pharmaceuticals/patents.  Apparently, the EU is pushing hard on these issues, propelled by fierce lobbying in Europe by patent-powerful pharma companies.  Which, actually, means nothing much has changed.  ;) 

The EU/India negotiations, where the EU has backed off its demands for increased pharmaceutical patent protection, doesn't really seem to be getting much play in negotiations.

The exchange of offers has been pushed off till March (although that's not definitive).  The next round of negotiations is scheduled for April in Ottawa.