The initialling of the SPA on Monday 8 September – by EU Foreign Affairs Representative Catherine Ashton and Canada`s Foreign Minister John Baird – came six months after European Commission President José Manuel Barroso and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that they had reached an agreement in principle on the sidelines of a summit on nuclear terrorism in The Hague. The text of the agreement has not yet been published, but it will frame cooperation in both economic and foreign policy sectors and cover issues ranging from technology and energy to the Arctic. The Arctic has been a particularly controversial topic, with relations deteriorated by the EU`s opposition to Canada`s annual seal slaughter. Canada has presented the EU`s ban on many seal products as an infringement of indigenous peoples` rights and has responded by preventing the EU from obtaining observer status with the Arctic Council. . . .