Belgian region warns pressure will 'stop' EU-Canada trade talks

Delicate negotiations in Brussels failed Tuesday to reach an agreement that will allow an EU-Canada trade deal to forge ahead, as a holdout Belgian region warned it would stop the talks if it faced more pressure to sign up.

Belgian and European Union officials held a string of meetings aimed at winning over the Wallonia region, which has prevented Belgium from supporting the agreement and effectively blocked a deal that must be endorsed by all 28 EU nations.

"I want to be clear on the fact that we have already received three ultimatums and that we will not tolerate a fourth ultimatum, wherever it comes from," Wallonia leader Paul Magnette told reporters.

"If there is a fourth ultimatum, we will stop the negotiations."

Six hours of talks broke up late Tuesday without an agreement, with bleary-eyed negotiators set to return to the table at 0600 GMT on Wednesday, the Belgian foreign minister said.

"We worked very well this afternoon and this evening," Didier Reynders told reporters as he left the negotiations, adding there were still "two or three difficulties yet to resolve".

Canada as well as the European Commission, the EU executive, and the European Council, which groups the member states, have all pushed for the landmark deal known as the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA).

The pact would link the EU's single market of 500 million people -- the world's biggest -- with the 10th largest global economy.

But leaders of Wallonia, a 3.5 million-strong French-speaking region south of Brussels, want more talks to produce cast-iron reassurances that CETA will not harm local interests.

Magnette and other critics oppose terms of the deal intended to protect international investors which, they say, could allow them to force governments to change laws against the wishes of the people.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said Monday his government could not endorse the deal after brief talks failed to win over Wallonia as well as the small German community and the Francophone community, all of which oppose the deal.

Nonetheless, European Council President Donald Tusk said later following a phone call with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that a summit was "still possible in Brussels" on Thursday.

A Trudeau spokesman said the Canadian leader was still planning to fly to Brussels on Thursday to sign the deal, which has involved seven years of negotiations.

His trade minister Chrystia Freeland, who engaged in fraught talks with Magnette last week, has said: "Canada is ready to sign CETA but the ball is in Europe's court and it's time for Europe to do its job."

- 'CETA is not dead' -

The European Commission renewed calls for patience while a majority of the European Parliament called for the most ambitious trade deal in EU history to be saved.

"CETA is not dead," said both the head of the Conservative European People's Party bloc, Manfred Weber, and his liberal counterpart, Guy Verhofstadt, during a session in Strasbourg, France.

Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister, said it was important to lay the groundwork for approving the deal by November and signing it in December.

European Parliament President Martin Schulz told German radio that he did not think a solution will be reached this week but that delaying the summit would not mean failure.

"If you need 14 more days then you just push back the summit," he said.