Wallonia

President of the Senate Calin Popescu-Tariceanu highlighted on Thursday within a meeting with President of Parliament of Wallonia Andre Antoine the upward trend of the Romania-Belgium commercial exchanges, underscoring the significant role which the community of Romanians citizens residing in this country has in strengthening the bilateral economic relations.

Wallonia's Minister-President has said Bulgaria should leave the EU, alongside other Eastern European countries.

It is "desirable" that Poland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria follow in the UK's lockstep, Le Monde [FR] quotes Paul Magnette, who heads the Belgian region's government, as saying.

The Slovakian rotating presidency of the European Council has called an emergency meeting in Brussels of the representatives of European countries after Belgium declared the agreement of Wallonia to support the CETA treaty.

After Belgium's Wallonia region, the capital region of Brussels has also refused to ratify the free-trade agreement between Canada and the EU (CETA).

At present, two out of the three regions in the country have declared that they do not support CETA.

The European Union has set a deadline until Monday evening for Belgium to overcome the resistance of the French-speaking region of Wallonia against the free-trade agreement between the 28 member-states of the EU and Canada (CETA).

The Walloon government rejected late on Thursday night the final compromise offer of the European Commission for changes in the trade agreement between the European Union and Canada which was supposed to satisfy Walloon demands.