The European Ombudsman announced on Friday 10 July the opening of an inquiry into the late publication by the European Commission of a Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) on the trade agreement between the European Union and the South American bloc Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay).
The five organisations that approached Emily O’Reilly on 15 June – ClientEarth, Fern, Veblen Institute, La Fondation Nicolas Hulot and the International Federation for Human Rights – also denounced shortcomings in the content of the evaluation and flaws in the transparency of the negotiations on this dimension of the agreement, which was finalised in June 2019 (see EUROPE 12374/5).
Ms O’Reilly’s agencies are asking the Commission to answer, within 3 months, a series of questions for “maladministration”.
The Commission is accused of having disregarded its own guidelines on the role of SIAs, which are supposed to be “independent ex ante assessments” that “feed into and steer the negotiations, assessing the changes that are likely to be caused by the trade agreement, helping to identify possible trade compromises, and ensuring that the related policy choices are optimised”, according to a Commission handbook.
The EU institution also violated Article 21 of the TEU, which contains sustainability objectives for all EU trade, according to the complainants.
The civil organisations further argue that the content of the interim report, published in the meantime, does not take into account the latest available information and that it was not submitted for comments during the public consultations at the time of the negotiations (see EUROPE 12349/5).
On 8 July, the final report of this evaluation was finally published. It will be presented to civil society on 22 July.
The legal scrubbing of the bilateral trade agreement is close to being finalised, but some elements still need to be finalised between the EU and the four Mercosur countries, noted a Commission spokesperson.
To view the complaint: https://bit.ly/2BOvjel
To consult the final report of the SIA: https://bit.ly/2Cj4QoW (Original version in French by Hermine Donceel)