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		</div><p>The Belgian government has reached an agreement to back the free trade deal between the European Union and Canada.</p>
<p>The move comes on the day the agreement was supposed to be officially signed with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.</p>
<p>Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel was able to announce the agreement following days of negotiations with the region of Wallonia.</p>
<p>The region has veto power in Belgium and the broader EU needs unanimity among its 28 member states.</p>
<p>The deal will go through regional legislatures by tomorrow night.</p>
<p>Mr Trudeau has been due to travel to Brussels today to sign the deal, but those plans were effectively scrapped as the negotiations with Wallonia dragged on.</p>
<p>Still, getting the agreement was a huge relief to EU leaders, who had started negotiating the pact with Canada seven years ago.</p>
<p>&#8220;This is good news,&#8221; said Mr Michel, adding that the new text of the deal provides guarantees for farmers and on a corporate dispute settlement system that &#8220;will allow us to sign the deal&#8221;.</p>
<p>EU President Donald Tusk said he would contact Mr Trudeau &#8220;only once all procedures are finalised for EU signing CETA&#8221;, as the trade deal is called.</p>
<p><amp-youtube layout="responsive" width="696" height="392" data-videoid="xbKOvxIYpDc" title="EU and Canada trade deal- CETA"><a placeholder href="https://youtu.be/xbKOvxIYpDc"><img src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xbKOvxIYpDc/hqdefault.jpg" layout="fill" object-fit="cover" alt="EU and Canada trade deal- CETA"></a></amp-youtube></p>
<p>Alex Lawrence, the spokesman for Canada&#8217;s trade minister, said hours before that the country was prepared to sign the deal whenever Europe is ready.</p>
<p>Mr Trudeau earlier told Parliament he is prepared to wait longer.</p>
<p>&#8220;We are confident that in the coming days we will see a positive outcome for this historic deal,&#8221; Mr Trudeau told Parliament.</p>
<p>Beyond the Belgian regional parliaments backing the agreement, the adjustments would have to be vetted by the 27 other nations.</p>
<p>That makes a signing ceremony today impossible.</p>
<p>Politicians in Wallonia, which has a population of 3.6 million compared with over 500 million for the whole EU, argue that the proposed accord would undermine labour, environment and consumer standards.</p>
<p>Proponents say it would yield billions in added trade through customs and tariff cuts and other measures to lower barriers to commerce.</p>
<p>At the same time, the EU says it will keep in place the region&#8217;s strong safeguards on social, environmental and labour issues.</p>
<p>He said Wallonia&#8217;s insistence on a better deal would bolster EU standards and set a strong precedent for other trade talks between Europe and trading partners like the United States or Japan.</p>
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