Canada and the European Union have finally agreed on a date for provisional application of the oft-delayed Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement.

The provisional application of the massive deal will come into effect on Sept. 21, according to a joint-statement from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, issued at the G20 summit meeting in Hamburg Saturday morning.

Speaking to reporters before leaving Germany, Trudeau said 98 per cent of the deal will come into effect on the Sept. 21 date…

The joint statement from the two leaders says the agreement “will enter definitively into force once the parliaments in all member states of the EU ratify the text according to their respective domestic constitutional requirements.”

Four EU countries have held ratification votes and approved CETA to date: Latvia, Denmark, Spain and Croatia…

Most of CETA was supposed to be provisionally applied by July 1, but it snagged on a dairy dispute…

The deal will drop barriers between the EU’s economy of half a billion people and Canada’s of 35 million. Trade between the two sides amounts to more than 60 billion euros ($88 billion Cdn) a year, and the EU expects CETA to boost this by 20 per cent by removing almost all tariffs…

This is excerpted from the 8 July 2017 edition of CBC News.