PLUCKY Walloons stood firm against the weight of Canada and Europe yesterday, refusing to accept the secretive Ceta free trade pact.

Paul Magnette, president of Belgium’s Wallonia region, said “difficulties remain” following hours of talks in the regional capital Namur with Canadian International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland to find a compromise.

The deal requires the unanimous approval of all 28 EU member states, and for Belgium to give the OK all three federal regions — Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia — need to approve.

Ms Freeland was on the verge of tears as she told reporters outside the Elysette, the Walloon seat of government, the deal was finished.

“It seems clear that the EU is not able now to have an international agreement, even with a country that has such European values as Canada, even with such a nice and patient country,” she lamented.

Mr Magnette said a key issue was how nations and transnational corporations would settle disputes under the deal.

The investor-state dispute mechanism (ISDS) court system is one of the most controversial aspects of Ceta and its sister trade deal TTIP, between the US and EU, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

ISDS gives transnational corporations the right to sue national governments for supposed loss of profits when they try to exert some control over their economy, for instance through labour laws or health and safety regulations.

Mr Magnette said the talks would continue, but suggested any deal might not be ready in time for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s visit to Brussels next Thursday.

EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said he had invited Ms Freeland to join talks with the EU and Belgium to persuade Mr Magnette to sign the deal Wallonia’s parliament has repeatedly rejected.

“We need this trade arrangement with Canada,” he claimed. “It is the best one we ever concluded and if we will be unable to conclude a trade arrangement with Canada, I don’t see how it would be possible to have trade agreements with other parts of this world.”

But the Belgian Workers’ Party set out a challenge in an editorial on its website: “Organise a European referendum and you’ll see that the Walloons are not alone.”

Campaign group War On Want said the commission’s “chickens [had] come home to roost.”

“Since talks first started on Ceta back in 2009, the deal has sat alongside TTIP as an example of how not to do a trade deal — absolute secrecy, zero input from public interest groups and sheer contempt for the very valid concerns of people across Europe,” said senior trade campaigner Mark Dearn, adding that the deal’s failure “lies wholly with its anti-democratic approach.”

And Britain’s TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said the collapse should be a “wake-up call” to British politicians.

She said Britain’s post-Brexit trade deal with the EU “mustn’t follow the Canadian model,” adding that an approach that protects workers rather than big business “is only possible if trade unions are meaningfully involved in negotiations from the start.”