On Friday 23 September, Euroean Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmstrom said that it was possible that the two multilateral negotiations involving the EU on the sidelines of the WTO could be concluded before the end of 2016: firstly, the negotiations for an international agreement on trade in services (TiSA) and secondly, negotiations for an agreement on the liberalisation of environmental goods (EGA).
"Those two agreements are in progress. It will be possible to conclude both of them before the end of the year", she told the press, following the informal meeting of the EU trade ministers in Bratislava on Friday.
Malmstrom reported back to the ministers on the progress in the TiSA negotiations (see EUROPE 11572), for which a 20th round of discussions at technical level was underway in Geneva this week.
In order to conclude an agreement before the end of the year, as is the ambition the ministers of the countries involved in the meeting in Paris on 1 June this year, the talks this week aimed to bring the draft text as close as possible to its final version in the fields of financial services, telecommunications, electronic trade, the temporary movement of physical persons as service providers (mode 4 of the WTO agreement on trade in services), the requirements for the location of service providers and transparency.
Discussions also covered specific institutional provisions and appendices to the agreement for transport, delivery services, professional services and state-owned enterprises, as well as provisions on market access.
This week, the environmentalist NGOs, headed up by Greenpeace, launched a new offensive against TiSA, this time divulging confidential negotiation texts (see EUROPE 11593).
On Friday, Malmström also informed the Council about the state of progress in the negotiations for an agreement on the liberalisation of environmental goods (EGA). The G20 countries participating in this agreement committed to concluding it by the end of 2016 (see EUROPE 11593) when they were at the Hangzhou summit in early September.
A 16th round of talks at technical level was held in Geneva this week. The work sought to reduce the range of products covered by the agreement in order to prepare for an informal ministerial meeting in Oslo at the end of October. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)