Brussels, 15/12/2014 (Agence Europe) - On 12 December, the European Commission reported that the negotiations on a plurilateral agreement for the liberalisation of trade in green goods and services - known as the green goods initiative, and launched in July by the EU and 13 other WTO member countries - reached cruising speed at the third round of talks from 1-5 December in Geneva.
Work on this third session focused on goods and technology that can reduce noise and vibrations, improve water quality, and guarantee an efficient and ecologically rational treatment of wastewater. While underlining the importance of preventing pollution and reducing risks at source, the negotiators assessed technology used for cleaning up, the Commission states in an information note. Other issues linked to the environment will be addressed later - especially, clean energy and renewable energy, energy efficiency and the efficient use of resources, monitoring, and environmental analysis and assessment.
Israel, Turkey and Iceland have recently stated that they want to participate in these negotiations, which already have the participation of Australia, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, the US and the EU.
Based on the relaunch of the multilateral negotiations of the WTO Doha Round, following the adoption of the Bali package in December 2013, these countries agreed in January to try to remove obstacles to trade in green goods and services and to trade in investment in this sector. Together the countries represent around 86% of world trade in green goods.
The green goods initiative is based initially on a list of 54 green goods on which the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries agreed, in 2013, to reduce their tariffs by at least 5% by 2015. The negotiations first focus on goods, but the objective of these plurilateral discussions is to create a “live agreement”, which should develop according to future needs and, in the long term, tackle other obstacles to trade in green goods and services - like non-tariff barriers, requirements for local content or restrictions to investment.
The green goods initiative also aims to boost the negotiations on liberalising environmental goods, as part of the Doha Round. Once a critical mass of WTO member countries has managed to obtain an agreement, the advantages of this plurilateral initiative will be applied to all WTO members according to the most favoured nation (MFN) principle. (EH)