Brussels, 25/02/2013 (Agence Europe) - The file on subsidies to aircraft manufacturers is not on the agenda for the EU-United States free-trade negotiations.
The transatlantic trade dispute on subsidies to the aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing will not, then, interfere with the future bilateral free trade negotiations - which are already complex. The issue “is not on the agenda”, European Commissioner for Trade Karel De Gucht confirmed the day when the EU and United States announced that they had decided to negotiate a trade agreement which will create the largest free trade area in the world. “It is a dispute being adjudicated in the World Trade Organisation”, De Gucht reiterated, adding that the new transatlantic trade agenda does “not preclude settling the dispute at some point in the future”.
The counter complaints filed by the EU and the United States against subsidies granted to their respective aircraft manufacturers are still being examined by special groups of the WTO dispute settlement body for the compliance of the parties with the WTO rulings on each of the complaints.
As the United States had done in spring 2012 as part of their complaint against aid to Airbus (DS 316), the EU called on the WTO in October 2012, as part of its complaint against support to Boeing (DS 353), for a special group to check if Washington has taken the measures imposed on it by the appeal verdict of the WTO in March 2012 (see EUROPE 10709).
The special compliance group on the American complaint must make its decision in 2013, and the special compliance group on the European complaint is not due to rule before 2014. (EH/transl.fl)