Brussels, 22/05/2015 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission Directorate General for Trade will hold a round table debate in Brussels on Wednesday 3 June on the on-going plurilateral negotiations on agreement on liberalising trade in environmental goods and services (green goods initiative).
NGOs, consumer associations, trade unions, professional organisations, industry and business associations, regional and local authorities, the European Parliament and EU member states have been invited to attend. Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström and her colleague at Energy and Climate Miguel Arias Canete, French Foreign Trade Minister Matthias Fekl, Costa Rican Ambassador to the EU Istvan Alfaro Solano are among the distinguished guests alongside the high-ranking experts from the trade, environment and sustainable development departments within DG Trade, the WTO, and representatives of key countries in the negotiations, including Denmark and China.
The Commission's stated aim is to foster substantial progress in the negotiations ahead of December's UN climate conference in Paris and the 10th WTO ministerial conference in Nairobi.
Negotiations on liberalising trade in environmental goods and services moved into their second phase at the 6th round of talks in Geneva from 4 to 8 May, with the finalisation of the list of environmental goods to be included in the agreement. A list of nominated environmental goods products falling into ten categories was drafted in the first five rounds of negotiations. Talks are focusing on products, services and technologies which contribute to green growth, protection of the environment, climate action and sustainable development, such as products and technologies for the generation of renewable energy, water treatment, waste management, monitoring air pollution et al. Negotiators want to be sure that the list of products enjoying duty-free access is easy to implement by customs officials and industry.
Following a commitment by the APEC, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, 2012 to reduce customs duties on 54 environmental goods, the EU and 13 other WTO countries (Australia, Canada, China, Cost Rica, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan and the US) launched this initiative in July 2014. The negotiations focus first on goods, but the objective is to create a “living agreement”, which will evolve according to future needs and, in the long term, to tackle other obstacles to trade in environmental goods and services, such as non-tariff barriers, local content requirements and investment restrictions.
For the moment, around 40 WTO members have chosen to take part in the talks. However, once a critical mass of WTO country members is reached for obtaining an agreement, the advantages of this plurilateral initiative will be applied to all WTO members according to the most favoured nation principle. Ideally, the agreement will be part of the package of WTO agreements so that other members of the organisation might open up their own markets. (Emmanuel Hagry)