The European Commission has proposed a simplified procedure that will finally allow it to update itself on the amendment of its schedules of commitments under Article XXI of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
This proposal, published on 8 November, is the first since 1994, when the European Union had only 12 Member States.
The 13 countries that have since joined the Union have kept their original schedules, with a series of adjustments to ensure their consistency. Notified to the WTO in 2004, these adjustments had to be negotiated with 18 member countries, which had declared themselves affected by them.
A proposal was submitted by the Commission in 2007. Applied as a mixed competence, it was approved in the European Parliament but could not be validated in the Council. Indeed, France backed down for linguistic reasons: constitutionally, it could not validate the text of an international agreement signed only in English.
It was the European Court of Justice's Opinion 2/15 of May 2017 - on the free trade agreement with Singapore - that would make it possible to unblock the situation by clarifying European competences, in particular on transport services.
In essence, as this proposal was already validated in 2007 by the Member States and the European Parliament, their support 11 years later should not pose any significant difficulties. (Original version in French by Hermine Donceel)