Brussels, 18/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - During the 12th round of negotiation, held in Geneva on 2-4 March, for an environmental goods agreement (EGA), the EU and 16 other WTO member countries taking part in the negotiations for a plurilateral agreement on liberalising environmental goods agreed on a roadmap for the coming months so as to reach an agreement “in a timely manner”, the Commission stated in a report published on Thursday 17 March. The next round of negotiations is planned for 18 April, and the parties want to boost the negotiations at political level during the meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the G20 and the OECD in the spring.
At the start of March, the negotiators also discussed the draft legal text for the future EGA and focused on issues such as the timetable and transition periods for the removal of tariffs, the revision mechanism for enabling the addition of new products to be covered by the future agreement, a working programme on non-tariff barriers, and the awareness-raising of other WTO member countries to extend the EGA's coverage to as many countries as possible.
The negotiators also continued the technical worked linked to the customs classification of 340 environmental good included on a list that was decided in December 2005. The work at expert level is essential for this, in order to ensure that the removal of customs duties for specific environmental goods can be implemented in a practical way by customs and the industry, the Commission's report states.
Those taking part in the EGA were informally convinced - on the sidelines of the 10th WTO ministerial conference in Nairobi at the end of 2015 - of being able take advantage of the momentum given by the international climate agreement, concluded at COP21 in Paris, in order to reach an agreement in 2016 (see EUROPE 11453).
Following a commitment taken by APEC in 2012 to reduce customs duties on 54 environmental goods, the EU and 13 countries - Australia, Canada, China, Cost Rica, Hong Kong, Japan, Norway, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan and the USA - committed to the EGA talks in July 2014. They have since been joined by Iceland, Israel and Turkey. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)