EU OFFICIALS could rush through the toxic Ceta trade deal with Canada before Britain leaves the bosses’ bloc, campaigners warned yesterday.

The European Commission suggested it may try to stitch up the trade treaty with Canada — similar to the hated TTIP agreement with the US — before the two-year clock runs out after Britain invokes Article 50 to quit the EU.

The BBC put to EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom that it would take two years to finish off Ceta, but she replied darkly that “it depends on how it is ratified.”

This implies that ratification — binding for 20 years — could be forced through as early as next year without votes from EU nations, Global Justice Now warned.

Ms Malmstroem and other commissioners will meet in Brussels today to discuss Ceta.

Canadian officials said that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will lobby hard for European leaders not to stand in the way of its ratification, according to Canadian paper The Globe and Mail.

The EU is Canada’s largest trading partner after the US, while Canada is 12th for the European Union.

Campaigners said that the Commission being in a hurry to seal the deal means it has “learned nothing from the Brexit vote.”

Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden said: “The way Ms Malmstroem is acting in trying to push this toxic deal through reinforces the widely held suspicion that the EU makes big decisions with harmful consequences for ordinary people with very little in the way of democratic process.”

Ceta is similar to the EU-US TTIP deal in that corporations are able to sue governments for actions that affect real or imagined profits.

A “regulatory co-operation” chapter threatens to hand multinationals more power in law-making and would spark a race to the bottom in safety standards and environmental regulation, Mr Dearden added.

“Rather than take a step back and question why there is hostility to the EU, they try to speed up this awful trade deal,” he said.

“Brexit has not stopped Ceta — in fact it’s entirely possible that Ceta could be steamrolled through the implementation process before the UK formally leaves the EU, and without any national parliaments getting a vote.”