Canada To End Duties On Imported Vehicles From The EU, Will Recognize EU Standards

Derek Kreindler
by Derek Kreindler

As part of a new free trade agreement due to be signed with the European Union, Canada will remove its 6.1 percent tariff on imported vehicles from the European Union, while the EU will remove its 10 percent duties on autos and and its 4.5 percent duty on parts.

According to The Globe and Mail, Canada will have a quota of 100,000 vehicles that can be imported, provided they are made with 20 percent Canadian parts. Vehicle with 50 percent or higher Canadian parts content will be exempt from the quota and can enter duty free. Currently, Canada only exports 13,000 vehicles to the EU, with the Eurozone exporting substantially more to Canada. If anything, the deal will result in cheaper luxury cars for Canadians, rather than a sudden rise in vehicle exports from Canada to the EU.

EDIT: Mark Stevenson at Autos.ca is also reporting that, according to a European Commission statement

Canada will recognise a list of EU car standards and will examine the recognition of further standards. This will make it much easier to export cars to Canada.

I wouldn’t be holding my breath for all kinds of Euro hot hatches and diesel wagons just yet. BUT if someone like Volkswagen wanted to import the Polo (a car that would do very well in Canada, according to VW Canada sources who have done market studies), the once prohibitively high costs of homologating the car might be reduced, or even eliminated.

Derek Kreindler
Derek Kreindler

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  • Pch101 Pch101 on Oct 21, 2013

    Now that it has been clearly established that (a) the EU and Japan don't have the same standards and (b) Latin American requirements are inferior to EU standards, it seems a bit silly that some people would insist that they're all the same.

  • Big Al from Oz Big Al from Oz on Oct 21, 2013

    @Pch101 So, you are becoming like ruggles and starting new 'threads'. You are wrong:) Where did anyone state that the standards are different? Japan uses UNECE. Like I stated UNECE regs are flexible, many countries can use them and they can be shaped to suit a countries need. But, if the nation is UNECE compliant, the vehicle can be sold in any other UNECE nation. How hard is that to comprehend. If two UNECE nations go to war do you think they will import each others vehicles? What's the difference. You are a real fool. Prove me wrong with actual links that are credible. Your opinion, as I'm finding is highly inaccurate. Are you a politician?

    • See 3 previous
    • Pch101 Pch101 on Oct 25, 2013

      @wmba "Japan is not fully UNECE compliant" To be fair, Japan isn't violating the rules. That isn't really the issue. The point is that UNECE doesn't produce a single uniform global safety or emissions standard, as some posters here would have you believe. Member nations have enough autonomy that they are free to accept or reject vehicles that are produced for other markets, and to use their own type approval requirements to keep vehicles out (as the EU and Japan both do) or to build cars that don't meet western safety standards (as is the case in much of the developing world.) This website's previous editor-in-chief devoted a lot of effort to misrepresenting what UNECE does and doesn't do. Al is just a dupe, and he doesn't know enough about this stuff to know that he has been fooled. (The fact that these inaccuracies cater to Al's anti-American bent doesn't help.)

  • Wmba Wmba on Oct 23, 2013

    It'll take decades for EU vehicle standards to become law in Canada - the current federal government is so Western Canada oriented, they want the EU deal to allow a few ranchers to sell more beef, and to flog more Alberta oil. Yup, they figure tarsands oil will sell in the EU because of a free trade deal. Fatuous: the EU won't allow it, any more than they allow importation of US hormone-fed beef or GM grain - they merely accept a few US trade sanctions and tell the US to go screw itself, despite losing a WTO dispute. If a hundred artisanal Quebec cheese producers die when overproduced soggy French brie floods supermarkets, then great, says our government, because Quebeckers didn't vote for the Conservatives and their modern version of parliamentary dictatorship, in itself a case study of how a system can be gerrymandered by ideologues. Our federal government is a total disgrace, just made worse by those idealogues currently in power. We've been metric for 35 years, but food is still sold in non-standard sizes. 398 ml and 540ml cans, 1.89 litre ice-cream cartons, 180 gram potato chips - the list is endless. Applying Euro standards to standard package types would be great. I'm not holding my breath, though. Judging by the lack of results here, by 2060, Canada would still be following US automotive rules. The current Canadian 6.1% motor vehicle import duty from countries other than the US was in response to Canada losing a WTO dispute. Canada had allowed the Big Three to bring in cars made overseas by their subsidiaries at zero import duty. Following the losing decision, instead of letting in all foreign cars duty free, Canada subjected all overseas made cars to the 6.1% import duty, regardless of company ownership. A stupid decision. http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/casestudies_e/case9_e.htm In order to hide behind not implementing WTO decisions, Canada shrugs and says, "well, that's a provincial matter, we have no jurisdiction there." See Ontario funding home-grown "green energy" producers, rather than importing ready made German or Japanese stuff. Ontario is not a sovereign body recognized by the WTO, but it swings great weight within the country. Of course, the US is about to start free trade talks with the EU. That should be a laugh and a half. Just as in Canada, States have constitutional rights that can't be bargained away to some trade deal. That won't stop the US from promising anything, secure in the knowledge that individual states will tell various officious EU commissioners to insert their feet up their asses and try to walk home, once the trade deal is in place. The EU has no federal countries in the sense of the US and Canada, and cannot really wrap their minds around the idea of tier two governments not obeying a national law. Perhaps I'm being too dogmatic on the "federal" theme - Germany and Belgium are federal states, and the states in Germany are starting to assert themselves. See the A/C refrigerant and VW share-veto disputes. However, there is nothing like California, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas or especially Quebec, all of whom like to think of themselves as separate "kingdoms" if you will. They're quite willing to tell their national governments to go pound sand. The EU will be well and truly snookered, is my guess. California told the feds to stick their emission rules, and implemented their own. In Canada, British Columbia and Quebec photocopied the California rules. Now California is on board with the Feds on CAFE, but the Canadian provinces haven't changed their rules. California could get annoyed with the Feds again in the future and make its own rules, probably breaking free trade deal regulations - but who is going to make them obey? Nobody, that's who. Ah yes, it will be a real learning procedure for EU bureaucrats to discover that some folks will tell them to take a hike, and there will not be any way for them to seek redress. Hair-pulling out time. Sure, they could initiate WTO complaints, win the dispute, and like the Ontario green energy initiative, not have anything happen. I'm looking forward to seeing how all this pans out. It's one thing to gaily natter about high-flown ideals, stand around for photo ops with equally stunned politico bureaucrats lauding each other for their far-sighted plans to equalize trade (and screw third world countries by loaning money they could not pay back in the 1970s and '80s), and the nitty gritty reality of dirty deals, perks for pals and the usual bulls**t endemic with the bigheads who rise to run things. Speaking of which, BAFO for Secretary General of the UN!

    • See 2 previous
    • Danio3834 Danio3834 on Oct 23, 2013

      "We’ve been metric for 35 years, but food is still sold in non-standard sizes. 398 ml and 540ml cans, 1.89 litre ice-cream cartons, 180 gram potato chips – the list is endless." This is one of your main bitches about our Federal Government, that they don't force food producers to use standard metric sized containers? When the majority of our food comes from a non-metric country, that's what we get. Forcing producers and distributors to make specialty containers for a market smaller than some US states would only drive the cost up. As if things aren't expensive enough in Canada.

  • Lou_BC Lou_BC on Oct 23, 2013

    @wmba - Intersting comments.I see that you are a fan of the Harper Government. Things will be so much better once pretty Justin Trudeau and the former permanent governing party gets into power. Must be from Ontario since you have all sorts of warm fuzzies about Alberta. Ontario has a big struggle ahead of itself to become once again the centre of Canada's universe. Ain't gonna happen as long as oil prices are up and the Chinese or Mexicans can build stuff cheaper than Ontarians or Americans. @Pch111 - interesting spin. South American crappy safety standards and the exploitation of those standards the fault of UNECE? Do we blame the UN for Somalia?

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