- French Prime Minister Jean-marc Ayrault met with Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper
- Both were upbeat about potential for a free-trade accord between Canada and the European Union
- Negotiations between Canada and the EU have been stalled over several deadlocked issues, mainly in agriculture
- The EU is Canada's second-largest trading partner, after the United States
Deal Provides 'Beachhead'
"And for the Europeans, I think it would be important to get this beachhead to Canada in terms of its own ambitions for a deal with the United States."
A transatlantic deal would give Canadian companies access to 500 million European consumers and eliminate 98% of Canadian tariffs on EU goods.
Negotiations started in 2009 with the expectation they would be concluded by late 2012, but they became deadlocked over a few holdout issues, mainly in agriculture.
With fears mounting that the talks might be sidelined when Brussels begins separate negotiations with Washington, Ayrault and Harper met hoping to get the stalled Canada-EU track back on the road.
"I'm sure that we'll be able to move closer together toward fair trade," Ayrault said, adding that a Canada-EU trade agreement could be a "model" or "precursor of sorts" to an EU-U.S. deal.
The EU is Canada's second-largest trading partner after the United States, its partner along with Mexico in the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement.
A de facto trilateral trans-Atlantic pact liberalizing investment and harmonizing regulations in the European Union, United States and Canada would be the world's largest free trade zone.
