A first exchange of views took place on Thursday 28 May on the report by MEP Marie-Pierre Vedrenne (Renew Europe, France) on the European regulation for the application and enforcement of international trade rules (see EUROPE 12490/26).
Faced with the paralysis of the Appellate Body of the dispute settlement mechanism of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the European Commission had indeed needed to urgently review its enforcement regulation (see EUROPE 12464/2, 12387/23).
In her amendments, Mrs Vedrenne proposed the addition of the services and intellectual property sectors, which are absent from the Commission proposal. A widening of the scope of this regulation would be both possible and “useful”, conceded the Commission representative, Director Denis Redonnet, during the debate. He stated that the Commission was ready to engage with the co-legislators on this issue, recalling the urgency of approving the proposal.
Another proposal by the MEP is the addition of interim measures to strengthen the EU’s ability to react to any illegal measures taken against it. A suggestion that Mr Redonnet did not reject was that “specific measures” could help to counter the risk of coercion by a non-Member State, he agreed. “However the vehicle for such action should in our view be separate from the enforcement regulation”, he concluded. (Original version in French by Hermine Donceel)