Rarely has an informal meeting of EU trade ministers aroused such a stir as the one taking place in Bratislava this Friday 23 September.
The reason for all the fuss is that all the burning issues of trade policy are due to be discussed at the meeting that will be chaired by Slovak Economy Minister Peter Ziga.
The first is the EU-Canada free-trade agreement (CETA), which it is hoped will be signed at an EU-Canada summit on 27 October (see EUROPE 11627). In an initial plenary session devoted to this issue on Friday morning, Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström will try to allay any lingering doubts the member states may have over protection of public services and European standards or with regard to the transparency of the new investor-state dispute settlement mechanism contained in the agreement that has come in for much criticism by civil society, and its ability to protect the right of states to legislate in the public interest (see EUROPE 11629).
At a second plenary session, ministers will take stock of progress in the talks on a free-trade agreement with the United States (TTIP), which is also arousing persistent hostility in civil society. The 15th round of technical talks is due to take place in New York from 3 to 7 October. The previous round, in July, revealed that the positions of the EU and the United States remain some distance apart on the market access pillar (see EUROPE 11595). Officially, the aim is to conclude an agreement in principle before the end of the Obama administration in January 2017. At the last European Council at the end of June, the 28 member states of the EU reaffirmed their support for continuation of the negotiations (see EUROPE 11583). France, however, cast matters into some doubt when it called publicly at the end of August for the talks to be halted. The trade ministers of twelve member states – the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom – all argued last week for negotiations to continue, affirming their support for the Commission in this (see EUROPE 11625).
Malmström will also give ministers an update on the progress in negotiations on an international agreement on the trade in services (TiSA) being negotiated on the sidelines of the WTO by some 50 member countries of that organisation (see EUROPE 11572), with a fresh round of talks underway in Geneva. This week, environmental NGOs, led by Greenpeace, launched a further offensive against TiSA, releasing confidential negotiating texts (see EUROPE 11628). In addition, Malmström will inform the Council of the state of play in negotiations on an environmental goods agreement (EGA) which those G20 countries that are taking part have pledged to conclude by the end of 2016 (see EUROPE 11593).
Over lunch, ministers will discuss two other thorny issues. Firstly, there is the matter of how to deal with China in EU antidumping investigations on expiry of a number of provisions of China’s protocol of accession to the WTO in December 2016. The Commission said at the end of July that it was working on a solution that is both legally and economically robust and that will rule out the EU’s granting of market economy status (MES) to China (see EUROPE 11598). And secondly, there are the plans for updating the EU’s trade defence instruments (TDIs), tabled by the Commission in April 2013 but still at a standstill in the Council. Despite a shared desire urgently to modernise the TDIs, the member states remained divided before the summer break, notably on the flagship element of the proposed reform – the lesser duty rule – as was made clear at the meeting of trade ministers in May (see EUROPE 11551 and 11570).
Steel sector demands progress on TDIs. On Thursday, the European steel producers association Eurofer urged the member states to make progress in modernising TDIs. “There is now a real opportunity for progress, particularly on the lifting of the lesser duty rule (LDR) and on the target profit margin calculation. Both are solutions that would make it possible to levy duties that are more effective, though the lifting of the LDR is the more favourable option”, it said, underlining, too, other parts of the TDI modernisation package would make anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases faster and more efficient to implement. Eurofer also demanded that China first meet the criteria before being considered by the EU as a market economy and argued for these criteria to be included in any EU legislation establishing a new anti-dumping methodology.
The solar industry association EU ProSun urged the EU to ensure that anti-dumping and circumvention rules are enforced in the face of unfair practices by Chinese solar panel exporters, which has resulted in massive over-capacity. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)